By 10am, 17% of voters in PD have cast ballots

PORT DICKSON: A light drizzle in most parts of the constituency since the wee hours stopped after 8am on Oct 13, and by 10am, 17% of the 68,317 voters here have cast their ballots for Port Dickson by-election to elect a new Member of Parliament.

Of the seven candidates, only independent Tan Sri Isa Samad (pic) will be casting his ballot.

The remaining six are not registered voters here.

Isa is scheduled to vote at SK Linggi between 10am and 11am.

For the record, he was Linggi assemblyman for six terms.

PAS' Mohd Nazari Mokhtar and another independent Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan are all scheduled to visit the SK Linggi centre first before they move on to other areas.

Independent Lau Sek Yan is scheduled to visit SMK Raja Jumaat in Lukut while another independent Stevie Chan has decided to spend the day with family and friends.

Kan Chee Yuen, the last of the five independents, has no plans to visit the centres in the morning.

However, the hot favourite, Pakatan Harapan's Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, is scheduled to visit centres throughout the constituency till polling centres close at 5.30pm.

Based on the Election Commission's records, 68,317 voters will be eligible to cast their ballots today.

In Tuesday's early polling for military and police personnel, only 63% of the 7,191 voters exercised their constitutional right. There are another 246 postal voters.

The Port Dickson seat became vacant after Pakatan incumbent Datuk Danyal Balagopal Abdullah stepped down on Sept 12 to make way for Anwar's return to Parliament.

Malays make up 42.7% of the electorate, followed by Chinese (33.1%), Indians (21.9%) and others (2.2%).

The seat, an MIC stronghold prior to 2008, is now seen as a Pakatan fortress after Danyal won it with a whopping 17,710 majority on May 9.