Doubts on security of ballot boxes for early votes

Ballot boxes for early voters and postal voting could have been compromised while they were kept by the police, along with indelible ink and other ballot papers for use on polling day, PKR vice-president Fuziah Salleh said today.

She said Election Commission chief Abdul Aziz Yusof had promised that representatives of the candidates could keep watch on the ballot boxes for early voting and they could even sleep in the police cells in which these were kept.

"However, this was not allowed by the police, who ushered our party workers away," said Fuziah (left).

"The ballot boxes for early voting and postal voters were kept in the same cells, along with the ballot papers and the indelible ink. I know as I was there to observe these being kept there.

"However, our party volunteers were not allowed to look after the security of the ballot boxes around-the-clock.

"A day before polling day on May 4, the EC officers came in the evening to retrieve the indelible ink and the ballot papers. I got a tip-off and went straight to the Kuantan district police station where the ballot boxes were kept.

"However, the police refused to allowed me to observe the process," she said.

The police, Fuziah claimed, also showed their rifles at her in a threatening manner, despite she being a candidate and the incumbent Kuantan MP.

She suspects there is a possibility that the ballot boxes could have been changed during this period.

In supporting her allegation, Fuziah said in 2008, early voting and postal ballot papers accounted for 20 percent of the opposition votes but this year, it was merely 10 per cent nationwide.

[More to follow]