Flying bottles and flag poles on the nomination day, scuffles between BN and opposition supporters throughout the campaign, phantom voters and missing ballot papers on polling day - these were some of the events that had marred the Ijok by-election.

But four months later, no action has been taken against those involved in the incidents.

Topping the concern of election watchdog, the Malaysians for Free and Fair Elections (Mafrel), however is the 143 ballot papers which went missing and which have not been found yet. [See missing ballot in official results]

Still puzzled with the mysterious disappearance of the ballot papers, Mafrel in a newly-released report on the 2007 by-elections has urged the Election Commission (EC) to conduct a special inquiry into the incident and make its finding public.

"That shouldn't have happened. The election law has provided that no voter can bring out any ballot paper from the polling centre," Mafrel chairperson Abdul Malek Hussin said when contacted.

"We are still wondering why there was no complaint from the polling agents of political parties and the (EC's) presiding officer was equally ignorant on what happened. It is an offence," he added.

EC: Unable to do anything

The report, made available to malaysiakini, has been submitted to relevant parties including EC, the Human Rights Commission, Anti-Corruption Agency, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and his deputy, Najib Abdul Razak, on Monday.

Mafrel was given the official accreditation by EC to monitor the conduct of the by-election and has been tasked to furnish a report on its observations and recommendations.

A meeting was initially scheduled to be held between EC and Mafrel in May to discuss matters in relation to the Ijok by-election but had been put off to a later date.

"We understand that EC is having a series of training for its election workers and Mafrel will only be able to meet them after Sept 15 when the training is over," said Abdul Malek.

The official election results of the Ijok by-election on April 28 revealed that 142 ballot papers were not returned at one of the voting groups in the Pekan Berjuntai Bestari Utara polling district. There was nine polling districts in total.

This amounts to nearly 30 percent of the total 500 ballot papers issued in the fourth voting group in Pekan Berjuntai Bestari Utara.

All ballot papers in other polling districts were accounted for except for Jaya Setia, where one ballot paper was not returned.

Voters in each polling districts are categorised according to their age in different groups, called voting streams. Generally, senior citizens will be placed in voting stream 1 while the younger ones are in the subsequent voting stream.

Despite calls to investigate the unreturned ballot papers immediately after the by-election, the EC was reported to have said that it was "unable to do anything" but an offender can face a jail term of up to two years or RM5,000 fine.

EC chief Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman could not be reached for further comment today.

'Give EC more power'

Meanwhile, in the same report, Mafrel has classified the case of voter impersonation and vote-buying as "isolated". The watchdog has only detected one case each.

"Vote-buying activities were not reported to be widespread on polling day. Mafrel received one public complaint from a voter at a polling centre claiming that cash handout was promised for voting a certain party," the report stated.

The findings contradicted with the opposition's outcry that electoral irregularities were prevalent on polling day and that there was a systematic exercise of 'buying' ballot papers.

However, Mafrel found that acts of undue influence towards voters were widespread outside all nine polling centres by the use of force, violence and vulgarity perpetrated by supporters of both parties.

On the violence that broke out on nomination day, Mafrel attributed it to the insufficient number of security personnel and that both parties were using a common entry route to the nomination centre.

Other reasons it gave were that BN supporters did not assemble at their designated place as instructed by the police and failed and/or refused to gather at the area as ordered.

The situation became tense when the two groups, gathered at a field, came into close contact and started hurling water bottles and flag poles at each other. This forced the police to deploy the Federal Reserve Unit to restore calm.

BN supporters were led by Umno Youth chief Hishammuddin Hussein and his deputy Khairy Jamaluddin while PKR vice-president Azmin Ali led the charge on the other side.

Mafrel noted that based on its observation in the by-election, the crucial issues and problems of the election process "remained unchanged".

This include, among others, the abuse of government machinery, the unequal access to the media, the misuse of public funds, especially promises of millions of ringgit in government allocations.

In relation to that, Mafrel has made a 30-point recommendations to the EC and one of the significant recommendation include calling for more power for the EC to prosecute violators of the Election Offences Act in an election court.


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