Hope for the future: The next generation celebrates an Anwar and Reformasi victory in a kampong in Penanti earlier this evening
Send in your “citizen journalist” eye-witness reports from Permatang Pauh as it goes to the polls. Others share with us your thoughts on polling day.
All eyes in Malaysia and beyond are trained on this constituency of 58,000 voters in mainland Penang, the scene of a pivotal by-election on Tuesday that could determine if an opposition alliance can press ahead with its plan to take over the federal government in the coming weeks. Check out my pre-election IPS news analysis here.
The official final majority is 15,671 votes. Anwar secured 31,195 votes; Ariff 15,524 votes and Akim’s Hanafi Mamat 92 votes (deposit lost).
2154: The unofficial final tally is a majority of around 16,500. On a more sobering note, the simple and friendly Malay kampong shopkeeper here says,”We don’t get anything whoever wins, you know.” Ariff, he says, is a nice guy. “He just happened to be in the wrong ‘car’ (party).”
Two little Malay boys were peering into my laptop earlier, a 12-year-old and a younger boy around six. I asked the older boy what he wants to be when he grows up. “Dreber (driver),” he replied proudly. “Dreber lori.”
2016: Anwar has bagged around 32,000 votes so far to Ariff’s 14,000; that’s a 17,000-18,000 majority. “He has taken on the whole BN machinery and all the resources at their disposal and come out tops,” says a lawyer.
2010: TV3 confirms that Anwar has won. But counting is still in progress.
1936: Out of 9,000 votes tallied, the BN has secured just over 2,000. Anwar is leading by about a 4-to-1 margin. The BN has even lost Seberang Jaya, according to my source.
1905: Another police convoy, sirens blaring, passes by heading to the central counting area, this time followed by scores of motorcyclists carrying PKR flags and waving in triumph. They are already celebrating!
1858: It’s a landslide for Anwar! Out of 5,000 votes counted, about 4,100 go to PKR, according to my source.
1854: Police outriders, their sirens wailing, a police van and police on motorbikes beat the long queue to the counting centre. Behind them a motorcyclist follows, the pillion rider, a woman, pumps her fist in the air. More motorcylists carrying PKR flags pass by. The police chopper circles above.
1852: Turnout is reportedly 65 per cent, lower than expected. (This was based on a Bernama report carried on the NST website.)
1848: In the distance, I can hear kampong children, probably sensing something in the air, continually crying out “Reformasi!”
1825: A convoy of bikers waving PKR flags passes by as a police chopper hovers ahead. Motorists continue to honk on the roads. Traffic on the roads here has come to a standstill. A siren wails in the distance.
1800: It all points to an Anwar victory by a large majority. An elderly Malay gentleman, Din, from the kampong here ambles up to me and we exchange pleasantries. I ask him what the level of support for Anwar is in this area. “Out of a hundred residents here, you could say 60 to 70 support PKR.”
1755: I have also received a report that Pakatan supporters have apprehended five buses of hantus in Seberang Jaya. But Gobalakrishnan has been arrested in the process. Motorists are honking and I can hear more cries of “Reformasi!”
1750: Abdullah Badawi is said to have returned to KL. I was heading to the counting area but there’s a massive crawl from Permatang Pauh heading to the central counting area. So I have parked in a little kampong area, Kampong Petani in Penanti. It’s an amazing sight on the roads here. Children are on the roadsides, shouting Reformasi!, come of them are carrying PKR flags while others are wearing Anwar masks. The childen at least are already celebrating!
1647: RPK and Mkini are both predicting a winning margin of 10,000 – but could it be more – or less, if the hantus get to work?
1636: “We are witnessing a turning point in our country’s history,” a friend of mine says in a text message.
1617: Hisham Rais reports that alleged hantus (phantoms) have been caught in Mengkuang Titi. What next? Check his blog for more about these mysterious hantus.
Calon PKR Anwar Ibrahim bersama dengan penyokongnya telah menangkap “hantu”.
Kejadian berlaku di Mengkuang Titi. Keadaan agak tegang di sana.
PEKIDA a.k.a geng adik beradik juga berada di sana untuk memanaskan keadaan. Penduduk kampung nampaknya lebih “matang” daripada PEKIDA untuk mengawal suasana.
1610: Ah Singh has this update for us. Could this be true? Interesting “mental estimates”! Polling’s not yet over though… We shall see.
Anwar won already-lah. My kaki just rang me at 3.15 pm to say landslide victory for Anwar after he and some guys did some ‘mental’ estimates at the polling stations. No fight-lah. Anwar won hands down. All hail the new Prime Minister of Malaysia.
1600: Bright sunshine bathes the town centre, keeping the rain away. I am now preparing to head to the central counting centre, for what should be an eventful evening. Stay tuned!
1530: While having some fruit juice at a coffee-shop nearby, I notice a couple of the waiters wearing shirts/T shirts in PKR blue. I look at the Chinese waiter’s cap when she serves me my drink. It’s the same blue. I look more closely at the emblem stitched onto her cap. It is a small portrait of Anwar.
A PKR man, a Chinese Malaysian, joins me at the table in the crowded shop. A party member for the last eight years, he says he has come from Ipoh because “I want to see democracy in Malaysia”.
Someone has suggested there may have been cloud-seeding operations to get it to rain! But it’s not raining now, though the sky looks grey and overcast.
About an hour earlier, I ran into a couple of Mafrel election observers. They told me the turnout at a Chinese school was high at lunch time – around 60 per cent. They also said they spotted three plainclothes police personnel in the compound of one polling centre and reported the matter to get them out of there.
Meanwhile, the Election Commission is reported as saying that the turnout could exceed 80 per cent. A friend of mine estimates turnout of at least 75 per cent and a winning majority of 15,000. So we know turnout won’t be low, although there are unconfirmed reports that the turnout was low in a few Malay areas. But there’s still time yet.
1452: Selvarajah Somiah reports on the unofficial turnout:
I have unofficial reports that the turnout at 2.00pm is at 65-70 per cent. At this rate, the voter turnout before 5.00pm should be more than 80 per cent. More people are coming out to vote now.
Anwar should be winning with more than 10,000 votes if this is the trend.
