DAP man concurs Pemantau’s findings of no foreign voters, blackouts
A DAP leader concurs with Pemantau’s finding that there were no incidences of foreign voters or power failure at polling stations during GE13.
Lisa J. Ariffin, FMT
DAP Election Strategist Ong Kian Ming today concurred with citizen monitoring group Pemantau’s findings that there were no incidences of Bangladeshi voters or power blackouts at the polling centres under its observation during the 13th general election.
Ong told FMT today that he was not aware of any foreign voters or blackouts during the national polls in May, but said his party has yet to issue an official stand on the issue.
When asked to comment on Pemantau’s findings, he said: “As far as I know, there were no foreign voters and blackouts so I concur with their view.”
Ong, however, would not comment on the other areas and added that, “there were no such incidences in my constituency.”
Previously, Pemantau reportedly said it did not find irregularities such as power failures and foreign voters in the 87 parliamentary seats that it observed.
“There are reports which say Bentong (constituency) suffered a blackout (during the counting of ballots). When I checked with my colleagues, I was told there was no blackout,” he said, adding that this supported Pemantau’s findings.
Ong had avoided the question of Pakatan Rakyat supremo Anwar Ibrahim’s claim that there were certain documents that proved there were Bangladeshis, Filipinos and Indonesians who were brought in by Barisan Nasional as voters.
Cheating, but not in the form of foreign voters or blackouts
Meanwhile, a PAS leader who refused to be named told FMT that cheating had “definitely” occurred during GE13, but “not through foreign voters or blackouts.”
“It would have been very difficult to cheat using foreign voters and blackouts. They cheated through other ways such as (using) an electoral role which is not clean, and through ballot counting,” he said without elaborating.
On Friday, Bersih steering committee member Maria Chin Abdullah confirmed that there was no power failure when asked if observers had witnessed any blackouts as alleged by Pakatan Rakyat as well as numerous commentators on the social media after the GE.
She also told FMT that: “We also didn’t know about these foreign voters. There were several reports of that but we didn’t see any.”
