Voting process in Gelang Patah runs smoothly with minor incident

JOHOR BAHARU: The overall voting process in the Gelang Patah parliamentary constituency was running smoothly with only one minor incident at the polling centre in Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Cina (SJKC) Pu Sze in Skudai.

Johor Baharu Utara police chief ACP Ruslan Hassan said the incident occurred at about 9am when a 19-year- old man jumped over the school fence to enter the polling centre.

“We have taken the teenager to police station for further investigation. We want to know why he jumped over the fence. Based on his identity card, he’s not even eligible to vote.

“He couldn’t even explain why he jumped or had wanted to enter the polling centre,” he said when contacted here yesterday.

The tussle for the Gelang Patah parliamentary seat saw a straight fight between Johor Barisan Nasional ( BN) chairman Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman and DAP advisor Lim Kit Siang.

The constituency has 106,726 registered voters, 52.41 per cent of whom are Chinese, 34.28 per cent Malays, 12.49 per cent Indians and 0.83 per cent others.

There are 32 polling centres in the constituency.

Ruslan said no weapon was found on the man and the case was being investigated under the Election Offences Act 1954 for causing commotion at polling centre.

He said the incident occurred right after Kit Siang arrived at the school to monitor the voting process.

The DAP advisor, who is a registered voter in Penang, is not casting his vote yesterday, citing distance as the reason and said he would spend the day by visiting several polling centres in Gelang Patah. — Bernama