Higher voter turnout in Salalah

Salalah: Voter turnout in Majlis Ash'shura elections has been impressive at all the election centres in Dhofar on Sunday. Voters started thronging all the centres at 7 am itself and they were seen waiting for their turn to cast vote.

With 40,444 voters, Salalah constitutes the largest Wilayat where voting took place at four centres in 51 halls fitted with electronic voting systems.

Voters were impressed with the introduction of electronic voting system, that they attributed as the reason for the large turnout of voters.

“We were excited to use this new system and reached my designated booth early morning at 7.30, but to my utter surprise I saw many people already in queue at Khaula Bint al Hakeem School,” said Bakheet Ali, who claims to have never missed any Shura election and always voted for his favourite candidate.

Yahya Md Ali Gawass, Head of Voting Committee in Salalah, endorsed this trend and said people started queuing up to vote soon after the gates were open for voting at 7am.

He said there has been an increase of more than 10,000 voters in Salalah as compared to 2015 when there were more than 30,000 voters.

“The number today is 40,444 and to ensure smooth election we have a voting committee which did several rounds of meetings and there are 51 halls at four centres to cast vote. There are separate halls of men and women”, he said.

Among 40,444 voters, 20,520 are men and 19924 women.

Terming this a very good response from people in general, an official involved in the election process said the voting pattern this time is different from previous years due to many factors and admitted that the authorities adopted better technology for registration and voting.

“Through various media the government tried to make people aware of the Shura election. The strategy turned out to be successful to convince people about the importance of Majlis As’Shura,” he said.

There were many voters at the polling booths who were exercising their right to franchise for the first time. Casting vote was first experience for Mohammed Issa, who works in a private company. He was delighted after casting the vote at Mamba al Hikma School.

Most of the voters endorsed the newly introduced electronic voting system as user-friendly in which the registered voters entered the polling stations with their identity cards, put the ID in the device, which is equipped with reading the voter’s details and proper verification he is allowed to proceed with fingerprint reading and finally voting for the candidates listed and shown on the system’s screen.

Commenting on his purpose of voting, a university student Hythem said, “Every society has some day-to-day issues. The election gives us an opportunity to elect a man who can represent the society in true sense. As he happens to be one among us, it is easy for us to approach and convince about the issues concerning us.”