Chapter 505: Election
Finally, the much awaited day of the voting came by and people in both the camps were very excited. The supporters of both parties anticipated the results to be in their favour.
The poll booths were set up in every area and the list of the voters were already kept in each poll booth. The officers on duty were responsible for unhindered polling and the next morning people would start going to cast their votes.
Bill Grey had been known in the entire country as an arrogant man with underworld connections, as he had used his dark power on a few business rivals too. As a result, the majority of the general public were a little reluctant in accepting him as the presidential candidate.
When a certain media house started a campaign named 'Who is my President', many of the people spoke their mind and favoured Mr. Chan over Mr. Grey. The media houses openly started broadcasting the live interviews of people from markets, cinemas and all public places.
Bill Grey was so angry that his blood started boiling when he saw the result of the live poll which was in favour of his rival. He almost fainted from high blood pressure when he saw that he was the least favoured candidate in the last three decades of elections.
Bill Grey started getting anxious about the results and asked his entire team to gather at once. Once everyone came, he asked for the data of all the areas around the country where he had more supporters and also about the areas where his votes were expected to be less.
He then asked his team to make a list of all the places where he was almost sure of losing and soon he was handed a list of places. He squinted his eyes as he read the list and instantly took a decision.
Bill dismissed his technical team and then called for his core team. These were the people who were working for him for more than a decade and were involved in all kinds of shady deals with him.
When his most trusted men came he handed each one of them the list of places and instructed, "This is the list of places where most of the public is in support of that Chan. Start mobilising all the men that you have and by tomorrow?2 p.m. in the afternoon all these booths must be captured.
Hire men from the local places to make it look like local strife between the current government and public, or make it look like it was done by anyone but me, and do this booth capturing."
His men were shocked to hear his words. They knew he must win and also knew that he was going to use all kinds of measures he could.?He succeeded in doing many of his unethical deeds and bribing, he even threatened and killed people, but booth capturing amidst all security arrangements by the government was not a joke.
Arrangements could be done with just a few phone calls, but the success of the booth capturing could not be determined when the security agencies were involved too. Yet they were aware that they had no right to deny their boss so they all nodded and left to immediately start mobilising their men and to hire new local hooligans to perform this task.
The next morning the poll booths were ready and so were the officers to make sure that the voting process happens smoothly.
Things started peacefully and people started coming in small numbers in the morning. The voting was going on at a slow pace as most of the people came out to vote after lunchtime. As afternoon arrived, a few dangerous-looking men started showing up and stood in large groups outside the booths.
This scene was visible in many polling booths across the country. At first, people didn't notice these men, but soon the security guards started noticing them and were filled with a feeling that something was not right.
Some security personnel also tried to question them and disperse those groups but failed as standing outside the polling booth was not considered illegal.
All those people were waiting for the signal from their higher-ups. As soon as they got a signal, two open vehicles filled with local gangsters started moving towards the polling booth.
Those people covered their faces and ran towards the polling booth and took out their guns aiming it at the security guards standing outside.
Threatening people at gunpoint, they went inside the booths and started putting seals on the name of Bill Grey on the polling paper and registering the votes in the names listed in the booth.
Many of the polling booths were captured that day and more than fifty percent of the votes were forcefully cast by those goons in favour of Bill Grey. Because of the guns carried by the goons, the polling officers and security guards could not do much in stopping them.
At a few places, the security guards did try to stop them using their own weapons but they were smoothly taken down by the goons who were outnumbering the guards and successfully cast a bunch of votes in favour of Bill Grey.
Even the media reporters were forced to shut down their cameras and the CCTV cameras of the booths were also broken to stop anything from getting captured and exposing the culprits. The officers were threatened with their lives if they reported the incident and notified the authorities about the booth capturing.
Some journalists who had recorded these incidents at some places were beaten up brutally and their cameras were broken,?they also had to suffer huge losses apart from getting hurt.
The public tried to intervene in some places but the goons were carrying guns and though they were instructed not to kill anyone, they were told to brutally beat up anyone who posed a threat to them and tried to stop them.
This day had never been seen in the entire political life of their country. The citizens who faced this and saw the kind of hooliganism that was going on were not only shocked but also afraid thinking about the result of the elections.
The public started panicking realising what kind of person Bill Grey truly was and what more would he do when he became the President of the country.