Pakatan Rakyat today called on all permanent residents who have been granted citizenship in return for votes to come forward to avoid being held to ransom by “treacherous agents”.

NONESpeaking in Petaling Jaya, PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar (right) said that by coming forward, the new citizens would help expose those involved, and would no longer face threats of having their citizenship revoked.

“We will continue with our campaign to clean up and expose abuses of immigration powers.

“I appeal to these ‘BN citizens’ to give us information on how they were naturalised, so that those involved can no longer revoke their citizenship at will and make political threats,” Nurul Izzah said.

She added that those who provided information to the Pakatan Rakyat secretariat should also not fear persecution as they would be protected under the Whistleblower Act 2008.

However, the Whistleblower Act 2008 only comes into force if the whistleblower goes straight to an enforcement agency, not to a third party, including the media.

Pakatan previously claimed to have found evidence of permanent residents and foreigners being offered citizenships in return for votes for BN.

The ruling coalition and government agencies have vehemently denied such a practice exists.

More than a thousand voters on the electoral roll were also recently found to be permanent residents, but the Election Commission and the National Registration Department claim that this was due to technical negligence.

The agencies claimed that the voters were in fact naturalised citizens, and that the NRD had failed to update its system to reflect this. 

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