Significant numbers of Kota Kinabalu-based voters have been disenfranchised of their voting rights by the gross inefficiency of the Elections Commission (EC) in the recent 11th general election.

We were initially of the understanding that only Sabah-based voters had been needlessly prevented from voting. However, to our utter horror and dismay, things had been similar or worse in Selangor, Sungai Lembing, Malacca etc.

Why were the voting hours extended only in Selangor, when in fact it was very clear that other areas and regions had been plagued with similar problems? Even in Selangor, some polling officers refused to enforce the extension of polling hours. Some lawyers have advised us that unilateral and arbitrary extension of polling hours beyond those gazetted in the election notification is against the law.

And now the chairman of the EC tries to draw a fine line between the commission itself and its officers, squarely putting the blame for the fiasco on his officers. Whatever the case, he as chairman should take full responsibility for the unprecedented blunders of the EC in this election and have the decency to immediately tender his resignation.

He calls on the opposition parties to accept their defeats graciously when in fact no one less than the BN chairman himself has said that a probe should be launched immediately into the shoddy way in which the EC undertook this election.

The EC's secretary has been quoted to say that 'we were given only a week' to administer the general election but everyone knows that it has been almost five years since they last organised one.

These blunders by the EC have marred what would have otherwise been a fine victory for the ruling party. It would only seem right that one of the first things the new federal government does is to ask for the immediate resignation of top EC officials, especially the chairman.

They seem incapable of properly doing what they are supposed to do only once in five years!