Pakatan Rakyat leaders will meet with the Election Commission next Monday to officially register their opposition to the recent suggestion by EC chief Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof to implement a proxy voting system.

PAS secretary-general Mustafa Ali said the Pakatan representatives have agreed unanimously to oppose any move to implement the controversial proposal, mooted by Abdul Aziz a few days earlier.

“A lot of parties are not comfortable with this (suggestion). If this is implemented, it’s as if it were to legitimise phantom voters,” he said at a press conference after a Pakatan meeting at the PAS headquarters in Kuala Lumpur today.

NONELast week, Abdul Aziz (right) sparked a firestorm of protests from politicians from both sides of the divide when it was reported that he was mulling over the possibility of implementing a proxy voting system in Malaysia.

He later dismissed the controversy surrounding the suggestion, stating on local daily Star’s website that the EC is not considering proxy voting “at all”, and that the idea was merely mentioned in passing while giving examples of voting systems in foreign countries.

Mustafa however was not convinced with Abdul Aziz’s denial that the EC was considering the suggestion, saying that there has to be a reason for him to even mention proxy voting in the first place.

“His idea is really strange... I think he has had this objective (proxy voting) in mind, and he was just testing the waters. From the time he said it till today is what, three days? He’s had a lot of feedback since then,” he said.

Proxy voting is wrong

Mustafa pointed out that the very act of getting a third party to cast ballots for a voter is wrong as all votes are secret.

He added that proxy voting has the potential to open up the voting process to countless abuses, such as proxies-for-hire who hijack votes ahead of voters’ actual representatives.

NONE“The three parties under Pakatan unanimously oppose proxy voting because it goes against the principles of democracy,” he said.

Mustafa (left) noted that proxy voting is only one of a long list of issues they intend to raise during their meeting with the EC, which is scheduled to start at 3pm at the commission’s office in Putrajaya.

He said they will also ask the EC to clarify a few other major issues, including Pakatan’s proposal to implement automatic voter registration when citizens reach the age of 21, and whether or not the commission intends to conduct a redelineation exercise this year.

“We were also told by our Defence Minister Zahid Hamidi of plans to set up Askar Wataniah (reserve army) camps in every parliamentary constituency. We want to know whether this would mean the army reservists will add to postal votes or be considered as normal voters.

“We suspect that this could be used as an excuse to generate more postal votes because we all know that postal votes are used as a fixed deposit for the BN,” Mustafa said.

Cautiously optimistic

When asked about Pakatan’s chances in the coming Tenang by-election, Mustafa said he believes both PAS and Umno have fielded their best candidates for the contest.

He admitted that it would be a difficult task to break Umno’s hold on the seat, especially with three Felda settlements located in the state constituency, but noted that recent “trends” lean positively towards Pakatan.

“I must stress however that the candidate will play an important role in this by-election, because local familiarity with the candidate will be a measure (of success).

“Maybe among the women, they will want to help a female candidate... if that’s the case then we have the advantage,” he said.

Umno deputy president and Deputy Premier Muhyiddin Yassin earlier this afternoon announced former deputy district officer Azahar Ibrahim as their candidate for Tenang, to face-off against PAS’ candidate, former teacher Normala Sudirman.