Batu Sapi: Fine weather greets early voters

SANDAKAN: Fine weather greeted early voters, mostly farmers and fishermen, who began arriving at some of the 12 polling centres, well before opening time. However, the weather man has predicted a cloudy afternoon.

Barisan Nasional's Datin Linda Tsen Thau Lin of Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) takes on SAPP president Datuk Yong Teck Lee and PKR's Ansari Abdullah in a three-cornered contest for the Batu Sapi parliamentary seat.

The seat fell vacant following the death of incumbent and two-term MP, Datuk Edmund Chong, in an accident on Oct 9. Tsen is his widow.

Chong won the seat in the 2008 general election by a 3,708-majority, defeating independent candidate Dr Chung Kong Wing. Chong won the same seat in 2004 general election unopposed.
Batu Sapi has 25,582 voters, of whom 24,047 are ordinary voters and 1,535 postal voters.
A total of 15,099 or 59.02% of the voters are Muslim Bumiputras, 689 non-Muslim Bumiputras (2.69%), 9,737 Chinese (38.06%) and others, 57 (0.22%).

Live updates:

8.30am: Polling centres open their doors for voters to enter.

7.45am: Ferried in small boats from various islands to Pulau Timbang from the first light of dawn were Bajaus and Suluks living in water villagers. They cast their votes at SK Pulau Timbang in Kg Tronglit where 984 voters are registered. The centre will be first to conclude voting at 3pm.

At Kg Seguliud, the furthermost polling center about 70kms from here, farmers of the Sungai community also turned up early at the SK Segaliud which has a total of 785 voters. It will close at 4pm and the remaining 10 centres will conclude voting at 5pm.

(Source : theStar Online)