Explain 'citizenship-for-votes', Ambiga tells EC

Koh Jun LinPublished: Jan 17, 2013 11:24 AM | Updated: Jan 18, 2013 10:15 AM

UPDATED 12.40PM ‘The EC should respond immediately, as this is a direct challenge to its integrity,’ says the Bersih co-chair.

Bersih co-chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan says the Election Commission (EC) must explain the allegations of a ‘citizenship-for-votes’ scheme as testified by witnesses in the royal commission of inquiry (RCI) on immigrants in Sabah yesterday.

“Although it is an ongoing RCI proceeding and one has to wait until its conclusion for all the evidence to come in, it is incumbent on the EC to respond immediately either to the public or at the RCI because it is a direct challenge to their integrity,” she said when contacted today.

NONE Describing the allegations as “spine-chilling”, Ambiga (right) said the allegations would undermine public confidence in the electoral system and impair the EC’s ability to conduct elections if left unanswered.

The former Bar Council president also urged the EC to clean up the electoral roll, and expressed concern that what happened in Sabah may have also occurred elsewhere in Malaysia.

Yesterday, several former National Registration Department (NRD) officers told the RCI in Kota Kinabalu that they were instructed to facilitate immigrants to vote during the 1990s and help install a BN-friendly state government.

These operations ranged from issuing identity card receipts of existing voters to immigrants to issuing blue identity cards to unqualified immigrants.

When contacted, EC chairperson Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof said he has been given legal advice not to comment on the proceedings while it is ongoing, and the EC itself would be giving testimony to the RCI sometime in February.

However, he stressed that the EC is currently following due process in registering voters, unlike what had allegedly happened over 20 years ago.

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