PETALING JAYA: The focus of the Sarawak election may thus far have been on Chief Minister Taib Mahmud’s unpopularity, but the weather may steal the thunder on Saturday.
Election Commission deputy chairman Wan Ahmad Wan Omar told FMT that polling centres in the rural interior may have to be moved if the weather rages out of control on April 16.
“If the polling has already started and the weather is very bad, then we will have to see if the polling centres need to be shifted,” he said.
“If the polling centres are flooded, we will get a report from our officers and decide on a case-to-case basis on the possibility of shifting to another area,” he added.
Wan Ahmad said that the EC had been holding discussions with the police, the Public Works Department and local authorities over this matter.
He also said that the EC was working closely with the Malaysian Meteorological Department (MMD) on weather forecast updates in the state.
“We have to think of logistics, the safety of our workers, whether they are going to be on boats and so on if the weather is going to be unpredictable.”
According to the MMD website, many parts of Sarawak on April 16 are expected to see thunderstorms or instances of rainfall in “one or two places”.
A MMD spokesman, saying that their April 16 forecast was 85% accurate, predicted heavy rain and thunderstorms.
Contingency plans
Despite these predictions, the EC said it was going to send its officers to their respective areas two or three days prior to the polling date.
“We have informed our officers on what to do if a (serious) situation arises. If it rains in an area on the eve of the polling date, we will do the needful,” Wan Ahmad said.
He added that the EC never had to deal with major weather problems in previous elections, barring a “small one” involving the Ba’Kelalan constituency in 2006.
Nevertheless, the EC stressed that it was not going to take any chances.
“If it’s normal rain, we can use helicopters (to get around). But if there’s a storm, then it’s different. When it comes to boats and sampans, we cannot control that,” Wan Ahmad said.
He added that the EC would be using the state-owned Hornbill Skyways helicopter service to ferry workers around.
Only one counting centre
Wan Ahmad also said that the number of ballot boxes to be transported by helicopter for counting purposes was drastically cut down.
He said that there would only be one Miri-based centralised polling centre to count the votes air-lifted from nine “very remote” polling stations in the state.
(There are a total of 1,749 polling stations in Sarawak, according to the EC.)
This is a big drop from the 50 centralised polling centres during the 2006 state election.
“The number of centres was reduced to one because a lot of the political parties were making complaints about (transporting votes via helicopter).”
“Hopefully they won’t complain this time, now that we’ve eliminated the number of centres to one,” Wan Ahmad said.
He added that the ballot boxes would be taken to the centre immediately after polling is closed.
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