Media statement by Lim Guan Eng in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, 5^th April 2012: 

DAP supports the joint Bersih and Himpunan Hijau 3.0 sit-down protest rally 

DAP supports the joint Bersih and Himpunan Hijau 3.0 sit-down protest rally at Dataran Merdeka On 2pm 28 April 2012 as a democratic expression of Malaysians' demand for clean and fair elections as well as a safe and healthy Malaysia free from radioactive contamination.

DAP supports the 3 key demands by the Bersih 3.0 organisers:-

• The Election Commission (EC) must resign;

• The electoral process must be cleaned up before the next general election due to the failure of the Parliamentary Select Committee(PSC) on Electoral Reform to address critical issues such as audit of the electoral roll was incomplete, forss abuses related to postal voting, election offences, failure to act against money politics, no free and full access to the print and broadcasting media and no measures to end dirty politics; and

• International observers should be allowed to monitor the polls.

The PSC Report on Electoral Reform shows a serious lack of commitment to address fundamental issues of electoral reform to ensure a free and fair 13th general election. The Final Report by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Electoral Reform, which was bulldozed through parliament without a debate and disallowing the inclusion of a minority report to highlight failures by the PSC to ensure a free and fair election.

The most serious shortcoming of this report is the refusal to highlight fundamental flaws in the electoral roll. Abuses of the electoral roll have increased since the March 2008 general election and more evidence has been uncovered by various groups such as the Merdeka Center, the National Institute for Democracy and Electoral Integrity (NIEI) and Bersih.

Among the abuses identified are a high percentage of voters who cannot be identified by local residents; multiple registrations by the same voter with more than 1 Identity card number; voters born before 1900 who are still on the electoral roll including one Wong Kwan Moy, who birthdate is listed as 23rd of August, 1853; voters with male IC numbers but listed as female voters and vice versa; and 42,000 voters whose IC numbers cannot be located using records belonging to the National Registration Department (NRD). This is just the tip of the iceberg since the Parliamentary Select Committee did not ask Mimos to conduct a comprehensive review of the electoral roll.

The DAP agrees with the statement by the Bar Council President, Lim Chee Wee, when speaking of the need to examine the electoral roll, that the "PSC made only a nominal nod in that direction by referring to a brief audit of the electoral roll by the government agency MIMOS, which was conducted within very limited parameters". The efforts by MIMOS to only examine addresses with more than 50 voters registered in them ignore the many other potential areas of manipulation and errors which exist within the electoral roll.

This is even more disappointing given that the Head of this PSCis none other than Maximus Ongkili, whose Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) was ousted from power in the state of Sabah partly because of the sudden influx in the number of voters in the electoral roll, including many illegal immigrants who were given fake ICs to allow them to register and vote.

The DAP strongly objects to the failure on the part of the Speaker of the Dewan Rakyat to disallow the introduction of a minority report, which documents some of the major problems affecting the electoral roll. The failure of the Parliamentary Select Committee to include the findings from the minority report into the PSC Report and the speaker's attitude towards its introduction as a separate document in parliament demonstrates the lack of commitment on the part of the government to put in place meaningful mechanisms and steps to clean up the electoral roll.

Given the lack of commitment to provide a clean electoral so that the next general election is free and fair, the DAP fully supports Bersih 3.0's call to gather at Merdeka Square from 2pm to 4pm on the 28th of April, 2012, in order to demonstrate the rakyat's desire to have a clean, free and fair 13th general election. The DAP also reiterates its support for the full implementation of Bersih 2.0's 8 demands, out of which only one - the use of indelible ink - was sufficiently addressed in the PSC Report.

*Lim Guan Eng, DAP Secretary General & MP for Bagan