KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysians go to the polls today to elect a government to administer the country over the next five years.
Some 14,449,200 of the total 14,940,624 electors are eligible to vote between 8am and 5pm today in the 14th general election.
The rest of the electors are absentee voters, postal voters or early voters.
A total of 2,333 people have filed nomination papers to contest 222 parliamentary and 505 state seats in this general election.
On nomination day, the Barisan Nasional won the Rantau state seat in Negeri Sembilan unopposed.
For polling today, the Election Commission (EC) has made available 8,253 polling stations with 28,115 polling streams.
The cost of conducting the 14th general election is RM500 million.
To conduct the general election, the EC has appointed 222 returning officers and 259,391 election staff.
The EC expects the first of the election results to be known as early as 9pm today.
Parliament was dissolved on April 7 to pave the way for the 14th general election, which has been described as the ‘mother of all elections’ that is seeing the main contest between the Umno-led BN and the DAP-dominated Pakatan Harapan.
EC chairman Tan Sri Mohd Hashim Abdullah has advised electors to come out early to vote because rain has been forecast for today.
He advised electors to verify their polling station and polling stream through the MySPR Semak application or at the spr.gov.my website or by sending an SMS to 15888 by typing SPRSEMAK and inserting their MyKad number or by contacting 03-88927018 or at the EC booth near polling stations.
Mohd Hashim also advised all quarters, especially the candidates, their supporters and party workers, and voters to comply with the laws and regulations, ethics and EC and police instructions to ensure a smooth general election.
The 11-day election campaign saw the contesting parties wooing the people for their support through the conventional and social media approaches, appealing especially to the young electors aged between 21 and 39 who make up 41.3 per cent of the electorate.
During the campaign, various issues were raised and viralled on social media, such as the alleged issue of foreigners having been brought in to vote and the alleged use of fake fingers imported from China.
To ensure smooth polling, the police reminded voters and political party supporters to exercise their right with discipline and not trigger any provocation.
Bukit Aman director of Internal Security and Public Order Datuk Seri Zulkifli Abdullah advised voters to go to the polls early to avoid traffic congestion close to the polling stations.
“Voters do not have to worry because policemen have been stationed at the polling stations to ensure security and control traffic,” he said to Bernama. — Bernama