Nasty SMSes aplenty, keeping polls fever high

SANDAKAN: As the official nine-day campaign for the Batu Sapi parliamentary seat ended at midnight, SMSes continued to flow into handphones with no contending parties being spared of slurs.

Keeping the by-election fever going, the messages contained mud-slinging, touched on in-fighting within parties and one even described the affairs of politicians who were not even in the race.

“I’ve run out of credit forwarding these messages,” said one campaigner, showing several of the messages which tried to persuade the people to not support certain parties.

Barisan Nasional’s Linda Tsen Thau Lin, Sabah Progressive Party’s Datuk Yong Teck Lee and Parti Keadilan Rakyat’s Ansari Abdullah are in the race for the seat.
Party workers were also busy sorting out logistics and arranging boats, buses and taxis to ferry people to the 12 polling cen- tres.

Logistics to ferry the voters to polling booths will be crucial for a high voter turnout.
The Election Commission has predicted the turnout to be as high as 75%, compared to 63% in the last general election.

(Source : theStar Online, 4 Nov 2010)