Several PAS leaders today named Barisan Nasional (BN) as the party responsible for the "imported voters" problem that is said to be rampant in Terengganu, Kelantan, Pahang and Kedah.

They claimed that BN not only has the power over the Election Commission (EC), but also the mechanism to transfer or re-register voters' names to the selected constituencies or change the stated polling centres.

They said BN is notorious for bringing outsiders to cast votes in selected constituencies in the four states in order to gain victory.

The PAS leaders were picking up on EC chairperson Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman's statement yesterday, that the commission was aware of the activities by a political party in "importing votes" and that the act is rampant in the four states.

Abdul Rashid, however, did not name the party.

He defined "imported voters" as genuine voters whose polling centres are moved by political parties to other constituencies during general elections and by-elections.

Non-Muslims and foreigners

When contacted, Terengganu Menteri Besar Abdul Hadi Awang's press secretary, Zahari Muhammad, said the PAS leader told a press conference in Kuala Terengganu this afternoon that BN was known for importing votes.

Hadi, who is PAS acting president, said BN imported voters to cast their ballots in selected constituencies where the opposition's influence is strong.

He said as an opposition party, PAS has no power to either register or import voters from outside.

Abdul Hadi claimed that only the ruling BN party can do such things, as well as exert influence on the EC.

Citing as example, the Ru Rendang state constituency where the population is 100 percent Muslims, he said that, during the last general election, the party had noted that there were a number of non-Muslim voters casting their votes there.

Even worse, he said, they also saw foreign nationals from Burma and Indonesia casting votes in Terengganu.

He stressed that PAS was unable to import voters as it did not posses the mechanism to do so.

Dead people's IDs

PAS' Pahang state commissioner Mohd Baki Othman also held a similar stand.

"For example, in the Chemor state seat election, we found two to four buses ferrying voters from outside the constituency to cast their votes. We noticed that they were all Indian voters, which was puzzling as the Indian community, mostly plantation workers, in the area is quite small.

"As we are a small close-knitted area, we knew that they were not Chemor residents. Even the plantation manager admitted to us that the people in the buses were not plantation workers. This has been happening since the 1990 general election," said Mohd Baki when contacted.

Kedah state commissioner Azizan Abdul Razak claimed that what the EC said was a "non-issue" and had been blown out of proportion to put PAS in a bad light.

He told malaysiakini that prior to the amendment to the Election Act on July 15, an individual has the right to cast his vote wherever he chooses to register himself.

"If it involves genuine voters who, for example, work and stay in Kuala Lumpur but prefer to cast their votes at their hometowns, it is not so serious. Why is the EC making a big deal about this? We are more concerned with the fact that the bogus voters in busloads are using the identities of dead people," he said.

He said that PAS has been very consistent in complaining about irregularities during elections but their complaints were seldom looked into by the EC which, he claimed, is only sensitive to the grouses of the ruling party.

Umno blames PAS

Meanwhile, Umno vice-president Muhammad Muhd Taib denied that BN is the party said to be importing voters. He stated that the party had never resorted to such practice.

He also recommended that, to avoid the problem from recurring, the EC should make it an offence for voters to change their constituencies.

Terenganu's Ajil state assembly representative Rosul Wahid also denied that BN and Umno had committed such fraud, pointing to PAS instead. He also claimed that, Umno Terengganu had identified a house in Hulu Terengganu which allegedly has 15 'imported' voters living there.

"We will start compiling such cases and will be filing an official complaint to the EC soon," he said when contacted.

He claimed that Umno was aware of the problem but did not lodge a complaint, thinking that the impact would not be great.

"But of late, the effects of imported voters have been quite bad, like what happened in the Anak Bukit by-election (in Kedah) where we lost to PAS. So the problem must be addressed and we should not allow them to get away with it," he said.