THE Election Commission (EC) is upset with supporters of political parties and candidates in Rantau for not shutting down their campaign booths or “pondok panas”.

EC chairman Azhar Azizan Harun said political parties had been defiant over the matter even after they had been told to shut up shop on polling day.

“I visited three polling centres. It has been going well, but I’m disappointed with political parties and candidates because the pondok panas still exists,” he told reporters after visiting a polling centre at SK Nyatoh.

“I told them to stop but they would stand down for 15 minutes before continuing again,” he said.

He said he warned them twice but they still continued to do so.

Azhar said these booths were redundant as the EC had already sent out voting cards with each voter’s information in the district.

“There is no need to do the check again. This is because we have sent out voter cards, which can be checked against the EC website as well through the EC app.

“We also have EC booths at each polling centre where voters themselves can check their information there,” he said.

Apart from this behaviour, Azhar said he was satisfied with the voting today as no untoward incidents were reported. – April 13, 2019.