The EC and the National Registration Department should conduct an immediate investigation into the 7475 voters in Sabah with “Red” and “Green” old IC numbers
Earlier this week, on Tuesday, March 19th, 2013, I, together with my colleagues from DAP Sabah, revealed that there were more than 60,000 voters with old ICs that were considered “problematic” by Ruslan bin Alias, an assistant head in the IC division of Sabah / Sarawak in the National Registration Department, during his testimony in the Sabah RCI.
In his testimony, Ruslan also provided a list of old IC numbers which were allocated to non-Malaysian permanent residents – termed “Red” ICs or IC “Merah” – and to non-Malaysian temporary residents – termed “Green” ICs or IC “Hijau”. The “Red” ICs were allocated old IC numbers ranging from H6000000 to H6040000 while the “Green” ICs were allocated old IC numbers ranging from H8000000 to H8040000.
When we investigated the latest Quarter 4 2012 electoral roll, which will be the roll that will most likely be used for the upcoming general election, we found that there were 7029 voters with old IC numbers belonging to the “Red” IC range and 446 voters with old IC numbers belonging to the “Green” IC range. This means that there could be potentially 7475 who are non-Malaysian residents who are not eligible to register to vote but who have been put on the electoral roll.
Not surprisingly, the seats with the highest number and % of these “Red” and “Green” voters are also the seats with the highest number and % of problematic old ICs. In fact, the top three seats for “Red” and “Green” voters and for the “problematic” ICs are the same – namely P188 Silam, P190 Tawau and P191 Kalabakan. These three seats hold more than half (52.6%) of voters with “Red” and “Green” old IC numbers – Kalabakan has 1704 or 22.8%, Tawau has 1326 or 17.7% and Silam has 903 of 12.1%. They include 20 voters – 19 of whom are “Red” and 1 who is “Green” – who are located in the Kg Tanjung Labian locality, which has been one of the flashpoints in the ongoing Sabah terrorist invasion.
While some of these “Red” and “Green” voters may have since obtained citizenship and thus have become eligible to register as voters, the fact that they are located in the very seats with a large number of “problematic” ICs warrants that these cases be investigate more thoroughly.
As such, we call upon the National Registration Department (NRD) and the Election Commission (EC) to conduct an immediate joint investigation into these 7475 “Red” and “Green” voters to verify that these registered voters who were once (or perhaps still are?) non-Malaysian permanent and temporary residents have been granted citizenship through the proper procedures and are thus eligible to remain on the electoral roll. If any or all of these IC holders are found not to be Malaysian citizens or were awarded their ‘citizenship’ under dubious circumstances, we call on the Election Commission (EC) to immediately remove them from the electoral roll. The presence of these potentially dubious voters casts a further cloud on the electoral roll in Sabah and hence on the freeness and fairness of the electoral process in Sabah.
