The Malaysian Insider

UPDATED

By Adib Zalkapli

KUALA KRAI, July 14 — Scuffles and the heavy presence of party supporters marked the start of polling for the Manek Urai by-election this morning. At 2pm, the Election Commission released turnout figures showing that 80 per cent, or 9,845 of the 12,293 voters had already made their choice.

The large presence of rival supporters sparked scuffles outside SK Manek Urai Baru but police stepped in to separate them with a police truck. Election Commissions chairman Tan Sri Aziz Yusof has expressed unhappiness with the situation, as the commission has banned canvassing on polling day.

“We will exceed target of 85pc if the trend continues,” said Aziz.

PAS leaders are predicting victory in Manek Urai,  but with a reduced margin, as they bank on disgruntlement over falling rubber prices to keep voters from supporting the Barisan Nasional, which has promised new infrastructure projects including a wider bridge and bigger mosques.

“About 80 per cent of the people here depend on the rubber industry, their income have been slashed to half compared to during last year’s general election,” said Kuala Krai MP Dr Hatta Ramli.

He told The Malaysian Insider yesterday that the promised new bridge linking two villages, Manek Urai Baru and Lama in the rural constituency will not sway the PAS supporters.

“Of course it is a good offer, to build a new bridge, but the villagers will not vote based on the project alone, it is not an issue, they understand it is congested now due to the presence of many outsiders, it is peaceful during normal days,” said Hatta.

“For example you look at the congestion after the ceramah, are they going to upgrade all the roads in Kuala Krai into eight-lane roads,” he added.

PAS have been relying heavily on the drop in rubber prices and the federal government’s responsibility to pay RM1 billion oil royalty for petroleum extracted off the Kelantan shore as issues to keep the seat.

Its Kuala Krai division treasurer Fauzi Abdullah, a 50-year-old fish wholesaler is facing Kuala Krai Umno Youth chief Tuan Aziz Tuan Mat, a 39-year-old former Kesedar officer in a straight fight for the seat.

Both are not voting in the seat as they are registered in theadjoining Guchil state seat.

PAS supporters also started with the psychological intimidation, and began shouting “Allahu Akbar!” (God is great!) when Tuan Aziz left the SK Manek Urai polling centre.

Police personnel and trucks have been called in to separate members from the rival camps who became embroiled in minor scuffles as their numbers grew, in the vicinity of SK Manek Urai.

Meanwhile, PAS sources now put the margin of victory to be around 800 votes, lower compared to what was achieved in last year’s general election where PAS’s Ismail Yaacob defeated Mohamed Zulkifli Omar of BN by 1,352 votes.

“We are still calling the outstation voters to come back tomorrow, some of them have returned some have only promised to come back, we’ll see,” said a PAS official who declined to be named.

He added that the majority would be close to the last year’s results if the turnout among outstation voters is high.

There are close to 2,000 outstation voters with most of them residing in other districts of Kelantan.

Meanwhile, Umno remained tight lipped on the party’s chances of getting the seat that it won in 2004 by 53 votes.

BN candidate Tuan Aziz responded with “Insya Allah” (God willing) when asked to predict his chances of taking victory today.

“Everything is well, we are prepared,” were the only words from Kuala Krai Umno chief Datuk Ramzi Rahman when asked for his assessment.

Polling ends at 5pm and the Election Commission (EC) expects turnout to be around 85 per cent, an increase of one per cent from Election 2008.

Results are expected to be announced after 8pm.