Suspicious Scenes
By Sarawak Report
Sarawak Report has obtained photographs of the tampered ballot boxes at the centre of the election controversy in Senadin. During an election which was swamped with tales of bribery and vote-rigging, the shenanigans surrounding this seat in the Miri region nevertheless stood out.
The bemused PKR candidate, Dr Michael Teo, who appeared to be comfortably leading until the last hour or so of the count, at which point the lights in the area suddenly went out and caused a confusion from which the BN/SUPP candidate emerged as the proclaimed winner by 58 seats, is considering whether to legally contest the result.
If he goes ahead and contests, he appears to have numerous grounds for complaint. For example, the postal vote came with a hugely impressive 103% of votes issued! Such statistics further defy the rules of mathematics, because 20 of the postal votes were also unreturned, reports the confused Dr Teo. Tellingly, 1,134 of these votes went to SUPP and only 58 to Teo – just 5% instead of the 20% share of the wider postal vote that went to PKR
The Returning Officer on the night, Chai Ko Het made matters worse with his point blank refusal to allow a re-count, even though the difference in the result was just 0.4%. The rules stipulate that if the difference is 2% or under a re-count should be allowed. Chai Ko Het’s objectivity has been undermined by the fact that he is known to have actively canvassed for the ‘winning’ SUPP party. SUPP workers were also discovered to have been allowed into a number of the voting halls, contrary to the rules, in order to tick off the ID card numbers of rural voters coming in (a crucial part of the transaction in which BN pays for votes, partly up front and partly on proven delivery!).
So, what of the photographs we have posted at the top of the page? These detail the further extraordinary developments that took place on the Monday two days after the election, when, in the middle of the on-going row over the irregularities of the Senadin count, the PKR agent found himself summoned without notice, along with his BN counter-part, to witness the boxes in the presence of a junior returning officer.
The point of the exercise has never been explained and the PKR candidate himself, Dr Teo, was given no information about the action until afterwards! During this highly irregular meeting, which only casts further doubt over the propriety of the conduct of this election, the junior returning officer presented the ballot boxes to the two party agents and invited them to inspect them.
The PKR agent, who luckily had his camera with him, duly recorded a number of glaring irregularities with respect to the ballot boxes, which were confirmed and agreed with by the BN agent and junior returning officer. It was recorded that 8 of the red envelopes of ballot papers that are contained within the plastic ballot boxes, which are themselves then wrapped in yellow plastic, had not been sealed and did not have the required signatures testifying that they were properly checked.
Furthermore, 4 of the ballot boxes themselves had no seals. Another 2 ballot boxes had their seals stuck in the wrong place so that they could be opened! In one of the boxes the red envelope had been cut and the ballot papers were tumbling out!
