'Gov't covered up instead of cleaning voters roll'

The government has not attempted to rectify past problems exposed in the electoral roll but had instead introduced laws to try to cover up any problems, said a Bersih leader.

The electoral reform coalition’s co-chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan.today cited how the courts had found the electoral roll in Likas, Sabah, to be tainted over a decade ago.

In wake that ruling, she said the government had introduced Section 9A into the Elections Act, which barred the courts from scrutinising the electoral roll.

“These things were happening to ensure that no one knew what happened in Sabah,” she said at a public talk in Bandar Utama, Selangor today.

She was referring to the hearing of the Likas election petition that followed the 1999 Sabah state election, which was heard at the High Court in Kota Kinabalu until it concluded on June 8, 2001. 

“Justice Muhammad Kamil Awang actually found that the electoral roll was not clean and he set aside the elections.

“He found it not clean because of the same complaints (as the Sabah royal commission of inquiry, or RCI is hearing at present) - of foreigners being on the electoral roll,” she said.

Ambiga was recounting to the audience of about 50 people how the Election Commission (EC) shifted its tone since April last year, from claiming to have the “cleanest electoral world in the world” to conceding that “mistakes” had been made.

“How can they claim to have the cleanest electoral roll in the world knowing what happened in Sabah?” she said.

She therefore said that she was “shocked but not surprised” by the revelations of the ongoing   RCI.

[More to follow]