SHAH ALAM, March 4 — At least 16,000 policemen and senior officers will be on standby in Selangor to maintain public order during the upcoming general elections.

"For Selangor, we have enough manpower and are ready for the elections at any time,” Selangor police chief Commissioner Datuk Mazlan Mansor said today after a security drill exercise at the Shah Alam courthouse.

At the courthouse, a scenario of rioters attempting to capture a public building was simulated, with riot police being engaged to neutralise the situation.

"At this stage from what I have seen, I am satisfied with the performance during the drill.

"Maybe there are minor things we can improve on, but these are not too complicated and we can overcome it,” he said.

Mazlan said some 500 policemen and senior officers from around the state were part of the drills, which began on Saturday.

"We conducted this exercise to test our capabilities for the upcoming general elections, to be prepared for any situation.

"The exercise which started yesterday (Saturday) has taken around 36 hours, beginning with tactical moves concerning smaller scenarios, mainly to test the effectiveness of district police

chiefs during such situations,” he said.

He said district police chiefs were tested on how they handled the simulated situations, especially steps taken to diffuse an emergency scenario.

Mazlan revealed it was the second such security drill conducted by Selangor police to prepare themselves for any eventualities.

"We have a team of observers here from Bukit Aman who will give us their feedback, as we will also run a post mortem on today’s exercise to see what needs to be improved further.

He said it was not yet decided if there was going to be a third drill conducted by state police.

"We will go over the results and from there we will see, if there is a need for another exercise then we will have one. If we are satisfied, we might just conduct smaller scale drills to solidify our movements,” he said.