Malaysian regime wins polls, Anwar alleges fraud

ARCHIVES 2013

By admin-s On May 6, 2013

(Global Post) – “It is an election that we consider fraudulent and the EC (Election Commission) has failed,” an exhausted-looking Anwar told reporters.

Malaysia’s ruling coalition retained its 56-year hold on power in hard-fought elections Sunday, but a bitter opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim said the polls were tainted by fraud and refused to concede.

The ruling Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition led by Prime Minister Najib Razak ceded just two seats in the election to end at 133, maintaining a firm majority of the 222-member parliament.

But he became the first leader of the regime, which has controlled Malaysia since independence in 1957, to win with a minority of the popular vote.

Najib, 59, called for a spirit of “reconciliation” but rejected any challenge to the outcome of the polls, marked by record voter turnout and a fierce campaign that laid bare deep polarisation in the country.

“This is the decision of the people,” he told cheering supporters in the capital Kuala Lumpur.

But Anwar was in no mood to concede after the hopes of his three-party Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Pact) alliance were dashed by a tide of late results in favor of the ruling coalition that Anwar calls corrupt and oppressive.

“It is an election that we consider fraudulent and the EC (Election Commission) has failed,” an exhausted-looking Anwar told reporters.

Voters took to the Internet on Sunday in droves to accuse Barisan and the EC of trying to steal the election, as indelible ink that Najib touted as a guarantee against voter fraud was found to easily wash off.

Videos, pictures and first-hand accounts of purportedly foreign “voters” being confronted at polling centres by angry citizens also went viral online.