If Datuk Seri Dr S Subramaniam can contradict EC Chair's claims, how can there be credible polls reforms when both the EC Chair and Deputy Chair remains?

If Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S Subramaniam can contradict Election Commission(EC) Chair Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof’s claims that the EC consulted the Health Ministry regarding the safety of the indelible ink, how can there be credible polls reforms when both the EC Chair and Deputy Chair remains? And yet Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof still insists that he has consulted with the Health Ministry regarding the safety of indelible ink used at the May 5 general election contrary to Dr S Subramaniam's statement that the Health Ministry had issued no such report.

Tan Sri Abdul Aziz had previously told the Straits Times of Singpore in a May 12 interview that the Health Ministry had advised against adding more than one percent of silver nitrate to the ink, which would have made the ink last. The EC was indirectly blaming the Health Ministry for refusing to allow an extra 1% of silver nitrate and causing EC to waste RM6 million on purchasing the indelible ink fiasco that could be easily washed off.

Tan Sri Abdul Aziz should immediately resign as EC Chair if he cannot produce the letter from the Health Ministry that stated putting more than one percent of silver nitrate in the ink could damage the kidney and cause cancer, a letter that the Health Minister himself denied ever issuing. If the Health Ministry cannot even trust the EC, how can the people trust the EC to be clean, fair and free in conducting elections?

The fiasco of the indelible ink that could be easily washed off has destroyed what little integrity EC has left, plunging its credibility to its lowest depths in history. Never before has the EC adopted BN’s political attacks against the opposition and had even threatened to sue PR leaders.

Did PR Lose The Perak State Government Cleanly And Fairly?

Other alleged EC misdeeds include switching election results between BN and PR as exposed by DAP Perak publicity chief Wong Kah Woh for the Jelapang state seat in Perak. DAP's Borang 14 for Polling Stream 3 at SRJK (C) Lahat shows DAP candidate Teh Hock Ke having obtained 330 votes, compared with 137 votes for the BN. However, the result for this stream announced by the EC was in the reverse, with the BN said to have received 330 votes against 137 for the DAP. The EC backed this with a different Borang 14.

Wong said the EC's version of the result, which has been gazetted, is highly unlikely because the DAP's parliamentary candidate Batu Gajah that covered Jelapang state seat, V. Sivakumar garnered 373 votes in that stream, compared with BN's 141 votes. In the other four streams at the SRJK (C) Lahat polling station, Teh garnered between 58 and 67 percent of the popular votes and won Jelapang with more than 70% of the votes.

What is shocking is Wong’s suspicion that one of the Borang 14 is likely to have been forged, because the handwriting for the figures in the copies of the form with the DAP and the EC are similar, but the signatures of the DAP, BN and Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) counting agents and the presiding officer are different on the two forms.

DAP won Jelapang with 16,921 votes, a majority of 12,266 votes compared with the 4,655 votes received by BN and 2,568 votes won by PSM. Although the discrepancy will not cost DAP the Jelapang seat, Wong correctly said it would have made a difference in marginal seats such as Lubok Merbau, Manjoi and Pasir Panjang. Indeed this can change the final result as to which party forms the Perak state government as BN won Perak by 3 seats with 31-28 seats.

Both EC Chair And Deputy Chair Must Leave

EC deputy chairperson Wan Ahmad Wan Omar had told a Bar Council forum yesterday that the EC had fulfilled their objective of running an election and any complaints are merely "technicalities" which do not warrant resignations. How can these complaints be mere “technicalities”, especially when PR won 51% of the popular vote and yet can not form the next government in Putrajaya whilst BN that won only 47% of the popular vote can win 60% of the parliamentary seats?

There can be no politically and morally legitimate government when BN won the smallest 112 parliamentary seats that comprise a mere 20% of the voters to form the Federal government. What type of legitimacy is enjoyed by a government that only enjoys 47% popular support as compared to 51% by the opposition? The average parliamentary constituency size of a BN seat is 46,510 voters compared to PR’s 77,655 voters.

The striking contrast of PR’s seat of Kapar with 160,000 voters with BN Putrajaya of around 16,000 voters highlights the unfair delineation of constituencies by EC that is weighted heavily in BN’s favour. As Wan Ahmad was EC Secretary during the last constituency delineation exercise in 2002, how can the rakyat expect natural justice? For this reason, the resignations of both the EC Chair and Deputy Chair is a necessary condition, towards removing one important obstacle towards a fair and clean re-delineation of constituencies that fully respects the principle of “one-person, one-vote, one-value”.

Lim Guan Eng DAP Secretary General & MP for Bagan