Opposition coalition Barisan Alternatif (BA) today urged the Election Commission to reveal the political parties which allegedly resorted to dirty tactics to tarnish the commission's image.

BA's election irregularities action committee deputy chairperson Abdul Rahman Othman said EC chairperson Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman must disclose the name of the political party which allegedly used unreturned postal votes to give the public the impression that vote rigging had occurred.

"He should openly state if he thinks that the culprit was the opposition. If he does that, then we can follow it up with the necessary response and action," said Abdul Rahman at a press conference called by the action committee to make public its comprehensive survey on election irregularities.

"Yes the opposition has exposed two instances of abandoned postal ballots. But that only involved two constituencies. The commission must now explain how such a huge number of 67,000 postal ballots out of 200,000 issued were lost," he added.

Issues not addressed

The Keadilan leader alleged that Abdul Rashid's statement was merely to divert the people's attention from the commission's weaknesses revealed in the recent general election on March 21.

"He failed to address the main issues like the commission's illegal extension of polling time, the different versions of electoral rolls," he said.

"These are the main issues that the commission needs to answer and he (Abdul Rashid) has not done so. It's obvious that the commission preferred to blame others instead of looking at ways to improve the system."

He said Abdul Rashid's conduct is unbecoming and urged the government to hold a tribunal to remove him from office.

Yesterday, Abdul Rashid expressed his disappointment at what he claimed were attempts by political parties to tarnish the commission's image using unreturned postal votes to 'prove' that ballot papers in their favour had been discarded during the March 21 election day.

"It is very disappointing that they have resorted to this to tarnish the commission's image. It shouldn't have happened and I leave it to the people to determine who the 'real liars' are," he said.

Messy postal voting

Commenting on the same issue, PAS central committee member Dr Hatta Ramli who was also present at the press conference said the opposition viewed Abdul Rashid's statement seriously.

"We (the opposition) take exception to his statement. The statement is also illogical. If we had the power to sabotage a total of 67,000 postal votes, we would not have thrown them on the streets. We would have put them in the ballot boxes so that we would win." he said.

"If he dares to openly accuse us, we would not hesitate to take legal action against him."

On the photograph published in English daily The Star on the polling of postal ballots by army personnel, he said it was obvious that the commission's system reeked of loopholes.

"Look at the photo, army personnel all over the polling station but there is no returning officer manning the situation."

"It is obvious that postal voting are open to abuse and we have repeatedly asked the commission to consider dropping the whole system but to no avail. But now when the pandora box is opened, he (Abdul Rashid) tried to blame it on others."

Touching on related issues, Abdul Rahman informed that both Keadilan and PAS would be meeting their election candidates tomorrow and on Sunday respectively to discuss election petitions that would be filed.

"Only then would we know the total number of petitions that we would be filing," he said.

(All dissatisfied parties have 21 days from Monday, when the election results was gazetted, to file their election petitions)

He also confirmed PAS' earlier statement that the opposition would be initiating a civil suit against the commission and the Barisan Nasional government over election fraud and irregularities during last month's elections.

"We would seek a re-election because we have evidence that the recent one was not conducted in a fair and free manner," he said.

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