Nurul denies misleading Lembah Pantai voters

The MP dismisses allegation by Umno that she sent out letters to voters in her constituency telling them they have been struck off the voter roll.

PETALING JAYA: Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah has rubbished allegations that she had deliberately misled voters by sending out letters to them saying that they were struck off the voter roll when they are still voters.

“Yes, I sent out about 1,000 letters last weekend to people who were past voters in Lembah Pantai but the names are missing from the 2011 third-quarter voter roll. They may have been shifted out of the constituency. This was a notification and to also clarify with them if they have really moved out or not,” she told FMT.

Nurul, who is a PKR vice-president, said that “ignorant Umno members” have claimed that she had also sent letters to dead people in a ploy to seek more support for Bersih 3.0.

“If Umno wants to challenge me, go ahead. I’m not the one with all the answers… the Election Commission (EC) does not make all the details known,” said Nurul, who will be holding a press conference tomorrow.

On the allegation that some voters were still found on the EC website although they received the letters, she said: “It’s because their names are not in the third-quarter 2011 voter roll. This just shows how dubious the electoral roll is.”

“I stand by my claim. I have done nothing against the law. I never hidden the fact that it was released by my office. Why do we need to verify all this [information] ourselves? Because the EC is incompetent and has failed in its duties; it can’t update [the voter roll], so we have to do the job [for EC].

“It’s really ridiculous that Umno is now making slanderous statements about me. It should stop and check its data first.

“Umno is consistently trying to tarnish my name and block my efforts to disclose the flaws in the electoral roll. Why is that so?”

Asked if she would take legal action against Umno, Nurul said she would consult her lawyers to take the necessary action.

She also said her research has revealed that 4,100 names in her constituency have been removed and many remained dubious.

Wakil rakyat zombie

Meanwhile, Brickfields district police chief Wan Abdul Bari Wan Abdul Khalid confirmed that one report has been lodged by a 40-year-old businessman over the matter (receiving a letter from Nurul).

“We have classified this case as a civil matter.. this means we don’t have a case and if the complainant wants to, he can take up legal action himself,” he said.

Earlier today, Umno reported on its website that Nurul had allegedly distributed letters to voters in Lembah Pantai telling them that the EC has struck off their names from the voter roll.

The report quoted Lembah Pantai Umno secretary and BN coordinator Mohamad Sazali Kamilan as having said that following several complaints by Sri Pahang flat residents, a check with the EC website found that many of the individuals were still listed as voters.

The letters, with Nurul’s letterheads, stated that the recipients will not be able to vote because their names are not listed in the EC website.

The letters said they they could have either been struck off the voter roll, shifted to another parliamentary seat or are listed in the EC website but not in the EC voter roll.

In the website report, Sazali hit out at Nurul for allegedly misleading the voters who are not “buta IT” (computer illiterate).

“If Nurul claims that there are phantom voters here [Lembah Pantai]… then she has been a wakil rakyat zombie all this while.”

He claimed that Nurul is not only confusing the public but has insulted the EC as well as the intelligence of the voters in her constituency.

He said that Nurul was intentionally inciting the people to join in the Bersih 3.0 rally on Saturday.

Out of the dozens of complaints Sazali has received, several have lodged reports at the Travers police station in Kuala Lumpur last night.

When contacted, Sazali told FMT that everything on Umno online is true.