‘World is full of dirty electoral rolls’

Umno MP Abdul Rahman Dahlan argues that it is statistically impossible to achieve a completely clean electoral list.

KUALA LUMPUR: As far as Kota Belud Abdul Rahman Dahlan is concerned, it is impossible to have a clean electoral roll.

According to the Umno leader, not a single nation had a 100% clean electoral list and therefore Bersih was demanding an unattainable target.

“Does S Ambiga (Bersih co-chaiperson) want a 100% clean list? Statiscally, we cannot,” he added when debating the Election Offences (Amendment) Bill 2012 in the Dewan Rakyat.

The electoral watchdog, led by former Bar Council president Ambiga, is slated to hold a rally on April 28 at Dataran Merdeka here.

Bersih claimed that the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on electoral reforms had failed to address the discrepancies in the electoral list.

Previously, the Election Commission (EC) revealed that there were 42,000 dubious names in the list which could not be verified.

Disagreeing with Abdul Rahman, Machang MP Saifuddin Nasution claimed that Bangladesh had a squeaky clean list.

“The Bangladeshi government postponed its polls for a year and spent millions to clean up the electoral list,” said the PKR secretary-general.

‘Even in US, New Zealand and Australia’
However, Abdul Rahman interjected, saying that although Bangladesh might have worked hard to clean its electoral list, this did not mean that the list was without discrepancies.

“Our EC cleans up our list on a daily basis,” he pointed out.

He said that even in the US, 15% of the names on its electoral list could not be verified of their existence and even countries like Australia and New Zealand faced the same problem.

“But the civil society movements there have dialogues with their election commissions instead of marching on the streets. That’s the difference between their civilisation and ours,” he added.

Opposition parties here have consistently accused the EC of working for the interests of the ruling coalition and being a party to electoral frauds, such as registering foreigners as voters.