A group of mostly Chinese-based student bodies from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) in Johor today demanded the university authorities nullify results of its student council elections which concluded last Monday.

Of the total 45 seats, anti-establishment students won 25 against pro-establishment students, 17. Three of the faculty seats are vacant because no candidates were fielded.

The results showed that the pro-establishment forces have significantly improved their position compared to last year's polls, where they won only two seats.

In a protest letter sent to the media, the disgruntled students said that the university's student affairs department should seriously investigate all allegations of mishandling during the recent elections, including the phantom vote accusations.

"We want the authorities with the presence of all the candidates in this year's elections to have an open dialogue session with students once investigations are completed," the group said.

They added that the team set up to investigate the elections must be independent and no other parties should interfere in the investigations.

"This team must also investigate every administrative staff in order to uphold justice. We hope that this team will also punish those found to have manipulated the elections accordingly," they said.

Memorandum

Among those who signed the protest letter include representatives from UTM's Chinese Council, Chinese campus publication 101, environment group Green Point and the Progressive Students Movement - a coalition of anti-establishment candidates.

The group also expressed support for a memorandum sent to the university's vice-chancellor Prof Dr Mohd Zulkifli Mohd Ghazali by about 400 students on Nov 30.

The memorandum, which bore 1,379 signatures collected over three days, also demanded that the university disqualify winners who have less than 3.0 cumulative points average (CPA) for their academic results.

Some election candidates alleged the university authorities lowered the academic requirement for election candidates from 3.0 CPA to 2.5 on nomination day without giving prior notice. The last-minute action is believed to favour 15 pro-establishment candidates, where seven won.

The memorandum also demanded that 'by-elections' be held for the faculties of Geo-Information Engineering and the Management and Human Resources Development because of alleged phantom votes.