No polls until July, says Selangor

ARCHIVES 2012

By admin-s On May 13, 2012

Among the “obligations” cited by Khalid is the rolling out of the RM300 million Selangorku social welfare grant. — file pic

(TMI) – Selangor will not follow Putrajaya in holding elections if they are held before the second half of the year, insisting that it has “obligations” to meet before going to the ballot box as speculation mounts of a possible general election in June.

Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim told The Malaysian Insider that the RM300 million Selangorku social welfare grant is still being pushed out and includes a RM2 million voter outreach project that will only be completed by the end of June.

“We found there are 435,000 names, new and also those that have left a constituency. We say to ourselves, 435,000 is a lot of people,” the Selangor mentri besar said in a recent interview.

Pakatan Rakyat (PR) had said last month it wants to delay polls in Selangor until the Election Commission (EC) cleans up the electoral roll in the PKR-controlled state which the federal opposition says has ballooned by 35 per cent since Election 2008.

Although Khalid said he did not “want to come up with any conclusion now” as to the authenticity of the changes to the electoral roll, he said the project would “make sure everyone knows what they’re supposed to do and level the playing field.”

“By the end of June we will provide the whole analysis of what makes up the 435,000,” the Ijok assemblyman said, adding that the figure emerged after a comparison of the electoral rolls used in the last election against the March 31, 2012 gazette.

He said the project would see the state government “provide a service far beyond the EC” to “meet each and every one of them, to know whether they are genuine voters” and tell them where they will be voting.

Khalid said his administration would try to meet each of the 435,000 “to know whether they are genuine voters and tell them either they are voting here or somewhere else.”

“That is the reason why, if you call elections [in the first] six months of 2012, we are not going to participate. I have to do this, so I can write to everyone to tell them you have to go to vote, which area, constituency, where to go and vote,” he added.