74. Polls won’t be dirtiest but cleanest- EC

Polls won’t be dirtiest but cleanest- EC

Posted on February 7, 2013, Thursday

KOTA KINABALU: The coming 13th general election (GE) will not be the dirtiest but the most organized, cleanest in the country’s history, according to Election Commission (EC) chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof.
He said the EC had introduced numerous mechanisms to better manage the election and to prevent cheating or unlawful conduct by the competing parties that could influence the process or outcome of the election.
Abdul Aziz, who talked to the media after presenting letters of appointment to independent election observers here yesterday, said the commission had also been actively screening the electoral roll to ensure that all the names were clean and eligible to vote.
“All names in the electoral roll, 13.3 million in total as of December last year, are clean. By clean, it means several things, firstly they are all Malaysian citizens with documents recognized by the National Registration Department (NRD). Secondly, they are all 21 years old and above, and finally still alive,” he said.
According to him, the EC carried out a cleaning up process on a daily basis by screening the list of voters with help from various other agencies, especially the NRD, who is the authority that determined the citizenship status of the voters.
“We also worked with other agencies, like the Health Department and the Prison Department for matters that fall within their jurisdiction.
“In addition to the clean up, we have also set in place many improvements. Based on this, I don’t think the 13th GE will be the dirtiest. It might be the hottest, challenging, but certainly not dirtiest,” he said.
Asked how he could be sure of this, given that the testaments from witnesses in the ongoing Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on illegal immigrants seemed to indicate the opposite, Abdul Aziz said these were just the statements from one or two of the witnesses and not the actual representation of reality.
He stressed that there were about 100 over witnesses expected to give their testaments to the RCI and it was unfair to make a conclusion based on the testimonies of just several individuals.
“If somebody wants to cheat, we already have ink (to mark the voters).
“They said postal votes were not transparent, we already have early voting (for postal voters). If the process is not fair, we have observers both in the country and overseas.
“Somebody said there is no fairness in the access to the media, we have also dealt with this. There will be a fair access during the campaign. Then somebody said there should be postal voting for Malaysians overseas, we are doing this too.
“So, it cannot be the dirtiest (as claimed by certain quarters). I don’t want to touch on what happened in the 90s, that was before, and even this is being looked into (by the RCI). I don’t want to speculate what questions will be asked but I can say that what the RCI is doing now is to ensure that the electoral roll is clean.”
He also informed that four witnesses from the EC, including the director for Sabah, would be called to give their testimonies before the inquiry.
Abdul Aziz however did not reveal how many suspicious names had been detected and deleted from the electoral roll so far.
Asked about the claims that illegal immigrants managing to get genuine identification cards and listed as voters in Sabah, he said everyone should let the RCI finish its investigation first before making any assumptions.
“I dare not answer that question before the RCI complete their job. Whatever the RCI report is going to be, we will accept it but for now this is just an assumption so let’s not jump the gun.
“As far as the EC is concerned, it is impossible for illegal immigrants or non-citizens to be in the electoral as all names are Malaysians with documents to prove it.
“When somebody shows up with an IC we could not ask where did you get it, it is not our jurisdiction, but we do check with NRD. The rule is simple, you have to be a citizen to qualify,” he said.

To another question, he said the ink to be used for the election was all ready and would be sent to all voting centres before the election.

http://www.theborneopost.com/2013/02/07/polls-wont-be-dirtiest-but-cleanest-ec/