Heat on EC as irregularities become a dime a dozen
A montage of photos of some of the incidents that was perceived to be wrongs committed or permitted by the EC during GE13.
Maria Dass, fz.com
THE Election Commission’s (EC) independence and fairness and the conduct of its officers have been questioned for as long as I can remember.
I covered my first general election (GE) as a journalist in 1999, and 14 years later the allegations and complaints have become more profound and disturbing.
Varying from unknown voters registered at a certain address; phantom voters; foreigners voting with Malaysian identity cards; incentives to mark ‘X’ in the box of a particular party; legitimate voters discovering someone had already voted on their behalf; postal voters being told by superiors whom to vote for; results at the counting centre changing after so called additional “ballot boxes” appearing, especially after some mysterious blackout.
These are among the long list of alleged discrepancies heard over the years. And over the last week, they have been the topic of conversations at every other breakfast, lunch, dinner, wedding and birthday gathering.
The difference in the 13th General Election (GE13), however, is that the public, seemingly fed up with EC’s lack of will to resolve these problems, decided to take matters into their own hands, resulting in ugly incidences, and innocent people getting hurt.
An acquaintance was made to sing Negaraku to prove he was Malaysian, and not a Bangladeshi, while another voter told me her first person’s account of how two men, suspected of being Bangladeshis, were roughed up by a crowd at a polling station in Klang.
There was even a commotion outside the Lembah Pantai counting centre to stop what the public thought were “suspect” ballot boxes from being brought into the centre.
In Jerantut, Pahang, counting agents for Damak state seat independent candidate Koh Boon Heng, refused to allow the EC to move ballot boxes from the counting centre as they suspected foul play during the vote-counting process.
While I do not agree with the high-handed methods adopted by some, especially with regards to the manhandling of suspected dubious voters/foreigners lining up to vote at some centres, it is obvious that this stems from too much mistrust and suspicion following a rising number of irregularities.
Read more at: http://fz.com/content/heat-ec-irregularities-become-dime-dozen
