Early voting in Kuala Besut By-Election today

A total of 1,134 military personnel and 14 members of the police are eligible to vote early in the Kuala Besut by-election today.

For the early voting process, two polling streams have been made available at the Multi-purpose Hall of the Royal Malaysian Air Force base in Gong Kedak here.

The early voting also witnessed those eligible to vote dabbing their left index finger in the indelible ink bottle before casting their ballot slips.

This was different from the method used in the 13th General Election on May 5 whereby the ink was painted onto the fingernail on the left index finger.

The by-election has been necessitated by the death of assemblyman Dr A. Rahman Mokhtar of the Barisan Nasional (BN) of lung cancer on June 26.

The BN's Tengku Zaihan Che Ku Abd Rahman, 37, a former civil engineer with the Drainage and Irrigation Department is facing PAS' Endot alias Azlan Yusof, 48, a contractor, in the contest.

Polling day is on July 24. The state constituency has 16,534 ordinary voters.