MP caught donning BN shirt in polling station

A Barisan Nasional (BN) leader wearing a shirt bearing the party's logo was caught walking around a polling centre today, an act which is considered as an offence under the country's election laws.

Pasir Salak MP Datuk Tajuddin Abdul Rahman was seen and photographed inside the Sekolah Kebangsaan Kg Bahagia polling station this afternoon.

Under the Election Offences Act 1954, any person who wears or holds any items with the symbol of a political party goes nearer than 50 metres of a polling station, can be imprisoned up to a year and fine up to RM5,000 or both.

"We have a photo and the security officer of this school can confirmed it. The MP was wearing a shirt full of the weighing scales logo at the polling station," DAP's Teluk Intan candidate Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud reportedly told the media.

The Deputy Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister, said Pasir Pinjir state assemblyman Howard Lee, must not be let off the hook.

"An MP and minister knowingly and blatantly violated the election offences without any reaction from the Election Commission (EC) is clear evidence that our EC is enslaved by the BN government.

"If Karpal can be fined RM4,000 for sedition, let Tajuddin be fined the maximum of RM5,000 and see him disqualified as MP," Lee told Astro AWANI.

Meanwhile, Tajuddin told The Malaysian Insider that he was being wrongly accused. He explained that he had simply wanted to use the loo after being couped up five hours outside the polling station with the BN supporters.

"That's slander. Someone escorted me. I wanted to use the toilet. I could not change my clothes," Tajuddin was quoted as saying.

Outside the polling station, BN and UMNO members from the Pasir Salak division had been engaged in a prolonged shouting match with Pakatan Rakyat supporters, both attempting to provoke the other.

So heated was the affair that Dyana Sofya's campaign team had considered cancelling her visit to the station.

Earlier in the morning, DAP national advisor Lim Kit Siang was seen standing near the entrance of a polling station in SJKC San Min 1, but had duly moved further when officials spoke to him.

Throughout several Chinese-majority polling centres, men wearing red t-shirts were seen and heard indirectly asking voters to give the vote to Barisan Nasional candidate Datuk Mah Siew Keong.

"Vote for our own. Vote for a Chinese," one of them, claiming to be an NGO member from Sabah, was heard by Astro AWANI telling a potential voter.

DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng had complained about the men in red clothing, claiming that they were agents trying to confuse voters.

"They are just trying to trick voters into thinking they are from DAP. They told one of them to vote for number 1(Mah), not 2(Dyana)," said Lim.

Election laws also prohibit anyone from soliciting for votes for any candidate.