EC live-streams early voting for Kimanis polls on its FB page

BEAUFORT: Early voting for the Kimanis by-election began Tuesday (Jan 14) with policemen casting their votes at the Membakut police station here.

Five of the nine registered voters including a retired policeman cast their votes shortly after it opened at 8am.

The polling station was placed at the police station's operation centre.

In a statement on Monday (Jan 13), Election Commission chairman Datuk Azhar Azizan Harun said early voting would be opened from 8am to noon.

The voting process was witnessed by agents of the candidates, and election observers appointed by EC.

The Commission also broadcast the early voting process via live streaming through its Facebook page.

He said all the ballot boxes for early voting will be kept at the Beaufort district police station lock-up, and will be counted on polling day on Saturday (Jan 18) at the clustered votes counting centre at Beaufort district office.

The Kimanis by-election is a straight fight between Parti Warisan Sabah's Datuk Karim Bujang and Barisan Nasional's Datuk Mohamad Alamin, with incumbent former Umno MP Datuk Seri Anifah Aman staying out of the race after holding the seat since 1990.

There are 29,644 voters in Kimanis, comprising 42% Muslim bumiputras, 41% non-Muslim bumiputras and 6% Chinese and the parliamentary constituency is made up of two state seats, Membakut and Bongawan.

The Kimanis seat was declared vacant after the Federal Court on Dec 2 upheld the Election Court's ruling, nullifying Anifah's victory in the 14th General Election in May 2018.

Anifah, who was the former foreign minister, had won the seat with a 156-vote majority, securing 11,942 votes against Karim's 11,786 votes while another candidate, Jaafar Ismail of Parti Harapan Rakyat Sabah, had obtained 1,300 votes.