Pakatan sues EC leaders over indelible ink to nullify GE result

File photo of a voter showing the ‘indelible ink’ on her finger after casting her ballot in the May general election.

(The Malay Mail) –  PKR’s Subang MP R. Sivarasa told reporters today that PR also wants the court to order the seven EC commissioners to personally finance the cost of the new general election if it is called.

Pakatan Rakyat (PR) filed a civil suit against Election Commission (EC) commissioners in the High Court here today over the failure of the indelible ink in a bid to annul the result of Election 2013.

PKR’s Subang MP R. Sivarasa told reporters today that PR also wants the court to order the seven EC commissioners — including chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof and deputy chairman Datuk Wan Ahmad Wan Omar — to personally finance the cost of the new general election if it is called.

“If the court agrees with us, then the logical conclusion is that the results will be declared void,” said Sivarasa at a press conference in Parliament here.

“We want a declaration that the EC failed to do their duty and they maliciously practised fraud on the indelible ink used in GE13,” added the PKR political bureau member, referring to the 13th general election.

Sivarasa also said that the court should order the removal of the present EC commissioners.

EC commissioners Abdul Aziz, Wan Ahmad, Datuk Mohamad Ramji Ali, Datuk Dr P. Manogran, Datuk Christopher Wan Soo Kee, Datuk Md Yusop Mansor and Abdul Aziz Khalidin were named as defendants.

PR noted that it had lost about 30 federal seats with less than 10 per cent of the votes.

“Therefore, even if a small percentage of dishonest voters were able to wrongfully vote more than once because of the deliberate failure of the EC to implement indelible ink, they were sufficient to affect the results in a significant number of seats,” the pact said in its statement of claim.

Barisan Nasional (BN) maintained its grip on power in the May 5 polls by winning 133 federal seats to PR’s 89, 21 seats more than the required 112 seats to form a simple majority.

The plaintiffs are the three PR parties — PAS, the DAP and PKR — as well as PR candidates in the May 5 polls who had lost with narrow margins, namely Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad, M. Manogaran, Saifuddin Nasution Ismail, and two voters named Arifin Abd Rahman and Abbo Rajoo.

PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar, who was also at the press conference, accused the EC of being partial towards Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

In the statement of claim, PR noted that Abdul Aziz had announced on December 19, 2011 that the indelible ink — which is meant to prevent double voting — would have four to seven per cent silver nitrate and would last for seven days.

But on May 4, 2013, Abdul Aziz said that the indelible ink contained just one per cent silver nitrate, according to the statement of claim.

“The EC dishonestly, maliciously and wilfully decided to reduce the level of silver nitrate in the indelible ink to enable it to be easily washed off so that dishonest voters could vote more than twice,” said PR in the statement of claim.

The indelible ink was introduced in Election 2013 as one of the main safeguards against electoral fraud, but the scandal surrounding its easy removal transformed it into a symbol of the widespread electoral fraud that PR alleged was perpetrated to keep BN in power.

In the May 5 general election, voters flooded social media services with images and videos showing the easy removal of the semi-permanent ink with common household detergents and, in some cases, nothing more than water and some elbow grease.

Wan Ahmad had sought to explain the ink’s failure to stay for its promised seven days by saying the level of silver nitrate — needed to give the ink its permanence — had been kept at just one per cent following the Health Ministry’s recommendations and to meet halal requirements for Muslims.

The matter sank deeper into controversy when Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim appeared to communicate that even the one per cent of silver nitrate had been absent, when he told the Dewan Rakyat that there were “no chemicals” in the ink.

The minister also said in a written reply to Segambut DAP MP Lim Lip Eng that a test conducted on EC officials and media personnel on May 2 “proved” that the ink was effective.

But Wan Ahmad later contradicted Shahidan and said that the ink did contain one per cent silver nitrate, and that it was likely classified as a metal, instead of a chemical.

Wan Ahmad said that food colouring was used to turn the indelible ink red for early voters and dark blue for ordinary voters.

Abdul Aziz too had finally admitted that the indelible ink was a “failure”, expressing disappointment with widespread reports of the ink being washed off easily with as little as soap and water in the 13th general election.