A total of 672 election-related reports have been lodged with the police since nomination day on Saturday.

According to Bernama today, Election Commission (EC) chairperson Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman said the reports were related to fights, quarrels, displaying of posters and illegal ceramahs.

However, he said there had been no disruption of ceramahs so far.

On public complaints over the location of political party operations room in public premises, Abdul Rashid said this was not against Election Rules.

EC checks showed that the parties were not committing any offences as they were merely renting the premises for their political campaign work.

Minor incidents

Meanwhile, Selangor police have received 24 reports on minor incidents such as arguments between supporters of political parties, burning of flags and defacing of campaign posters since Parliament was dissolved on March 4.

"So far there are no serious cases, the political parties are adhering to the law," said state police chief Mohd Fauzi Saari.

He also revealed that the police have issued 241 permits as of Monday for election campaigning purposes in the state.

"We have received many applications for permits from time to time and this is expected to increase by polling day," he added.

He said there had been no cases of political rallies being held without permits as political parties had cooperated in maintaining peace and public order in the state.

He added that the police were regularly informed by the political parties on their political activities and this enabled them to send their personnel to monitor security during campaigning.

Apart from ensuring security, he said police personnel were also deployed to control traffic in places where ceramah are held.

Mohd Fauzi said the Bukit Aman federal police headquarters had dispatched 840 personnel to aid the state police during the general election.

This, he added, included personnel from the Federal Reserve Unit (FRU) and General Operations Force (GOF).

Postal votes

In another development, military personnel and their spouses who are postal voters will begin casting their ballots from Thursday.

Defence Forces Chief General Mohd Zahidi Zainuddin said military personnel working in the Defence Ministry would begin voting from 9am on Thursday.

"All armed forces personnel working in Kuala Lumpur and its suburbs as well as the Defence Ministry will be given time off to vote," he was quoted as saying in a Bernama report.

"Postal balloting in the army will be on for three days - Thursday, Friday and Saturday," he said.

Sunday is polling day for all other voters in the country.

The general said some 113,000 armed forces personnel and their spouses including 84 officers and men involved in United Nations peacekeeping missions overseas would participate in the postal vote.

"We have made arrangements to ensure that they get the ballot papers and return them within a short time," he added.