Media statement by Dr. Hiew King Cheu in Kota Kinabalu on Saturday, 1^st October 2011:

Kinabatangan population/voters ratio unbelievable

The immigrant population in the Kinabatangan district in 2010 surpassed the local population, according to Women, Family and Community Ministry Secretary General Dato Dr Noorul Ainur Mohd Nur.

She said out of the total of 150,327 people in Kinabatangan, 117,689 were foreigners. There is only 32,638 were locals.

I was surprised by the figures as announced. The figures actually told us something is not right when we compared with the registered number of voters on the electoral roll for the Kinabatangan Parliament Constituency.

The registered voter in Kinabatangan is around 22,000 from the 32,638 local people (68%). This is very high when compared with many other areas in Sabah. The normal "voters to population ratio" is from 20% to 35% only. For example in Beaufort, it is 28000 voters to 70,000 people (36%), for Penampang, it is 36000 voters to 130000 people (28%), and for Beluran it is 20,000 voters to 110,000 people (18%) only.

We cannot understand the situation in Kinabatang, and may be some one can explain the high voters to population rate to us. The Secretary General to the Ministry and many other people may not have noticed this extraordinary situation.

The only logical explanation can due to that the foreigners may have been registered as voters too.

The Election Commission (SPR) will have to carry out a thorough investigation to check once again on the strength number of voters happening here, called MP Hiew. This is not possible for a constituency to have 68% of the people are voters. Normally, many kampong folks and their young ones are not registered as voters, and also many of them are working away from the area. This is even more obvious in Kinabatangan area.

Therefore, we demand SPR must check back to see whether there is a mistake involved, and give us a detailed report to explain the same.

* Dr Hiew King Cheu, MP for Kota Kinabalu