PAS claims victory… already

(The Malaysian Insider) MANEK URAI, July 14 — With less than an hour to go before the polls close, Kelantan PAS election director Abdul Fatah Harun has already claimed victory.

He predicts that PAS candidate Mohd Fauzi Abdullah will win with a majority of nearly 2,000.

"We have won, it is close to 2,000 this time," Kelantan PAS election chief Fatah Haron told The Malaysian Insider.

In the last general election the Islamist party candidate Ismail Yaacob, who died last May, defeated Barisan Nasional's Zulkepli Omar by 1,352 votes.

Yesterday PAS officials express their concern over outstation voters numbering aroun 2,000, who may not return to cast their ballots, resulted in the party volunteers making phone calls late into the night to urge the party supporters to return to the rural constituency.

The initial lack of interest among outstation voters, made the party official to predict the margin of victory to be around 800 votes.

But as of 4pm, 86.5 per cent or 10,626 out of 12,293 voters have cast their ballot, exceeding the Election Commission's target of 85 per cent turn out.