Snapshots from the Manek Urai Election

An award winning Roti Canai shop which is located in the main town of Kuala Krai and is about 10km away to the Manek Urai district and a must stop location when making your way there.

These helicopters which ferried in the umno bigshots and one was carrying Muhyiddin the Deputy Prime Minister to the nomination center in Kuala Krai while the people and opposition are caught in traffic jams and have to walk quite a distance on nomination day.

The grandiose Barisan National operation center in Manek Urai with tents and buildings that are fully air conditioned and equip with the latest and best of equipment and furniture for the comfort of umno members, umno is all about luxury and comfort and must have cost millions to set up and take note of the fully pack car parks which looks like a posh car showroom that comes with tents to protect their luxury cars from the sun. What a distinct difference from the PAS operation center at the old shophouse with just basic furniture and a couple of old stand fans, and in there you can see supporters sleeping or resting on mats placed on the bare cement floors.

The whisperer is curious of this container in the compound of the operation center that has labels that says 1Malaysia and he insist on stopping the car for this photo, hmm wonder whats inside... maybe there is 1 Malaysian in there.

This is not your everyday police pondok, we were not allowed in to the compound so the shots you see are all taken from outside the perimeter of this huge area with tents and huge factory like buildings and we saw four big factory buildings and some are of double volumes and one look like up to 3 storey high. You can never be able to comprehend all this trouble and expense of millions of ringgits just for a small state by election with 12,293 voters.

All the buildings and tents are fully covered and are big enough to house jets and nuclear missiles, this compound looks intimidating and are fully guarded with armed police and guards. My estimate of the size of this area is easily over 30 acres of land.Some of the locals say that Manek Urai has some 5000 fully armed personnel and even at 2100 uniformed personnel as reported by the press it is still a big number for this sparsely populated district consisting of planters and farmers with numerous kampongs deep into the woods but why all this buildings and there is already quite a big police station in the district.

Can never really understand all this huge temporary facility just for eight days from nomination to election and must have cost the government millions of ringgit. This is mind boggling!