Rafizi using ‘People’s Tribunal’ to create trouble, says EC

KUALA LUMPUR, May 14 — Rafizi Ramli’s plan to gather evidence of polls fraud and raise it before Bersih’s “People’s Tribunal” is aimed at inciting trouble, Election Commission (EC) deputy chairman Datuk Wan Ahmad Wan Omar said today.

Wan Ahmad claimed the PKR leader’s move could create confusion among voters and urged the just-elected Pandan MP to instead use the appropriate channel to address the opposition’s allegations of vote-rigging.

“If you lost and want to protest… protest through the legal channel. There is no use influencing the people and hold demonstrations and illegal gatherings.

“When you want to bring it to the ‘People’s Tribunal’, one, you would only create trouble, two, it is not legal, it is wrong. It will create a lot of misunderstanding among the people,” Wan Ahmad(picture) told The Malaysian Insider.

Rafizi had said yesterday that PKR was investigating the results of 27 federal seats that Barisan Nasional (BN) won with razor-thin margins in Election 2013 and where electoral fraud has been reported in most of the seats.

The PKR strategy director noted that the party’s #siasatPRU13 team, which he is leading, has received 237 reports from the public on vote-rigging.

The alleged violations included vote-buying, unidentified voters registered at certain house addresses, flawed indelible ink and the issuance of ICs to foreign nationals to allow them to vote.

Rafizi said his team has 67 volunteers, comprising mostly lawyers and accountants, who will record evidence from complainants this week.

“Once we go through the whole process, we’ll bring up our case to the People’s Tribunal,” he said, referring to the tribunal set up by polls watchdog Bersih to examine evidence on electoral irregularities.

Rafizi added that election petitions would be filed by the end of the month, but said he did not expect favourable verdicts.

Despite the protest, Wan Ahmad insisted that the EC had conducted the polls fairly and successfully, citing the high voter turnout at the May 5 polls as evidence of voter confidence in the electoral system.

“We have conducted a successful polls, there was an 85 per cent turnout… we have done a good job as you can see from the turnout,” he said.

Barisan Nasional (BN) retained power in the May 5 general election with just 133 federal seats, 21 more than the 112 required to win a simple majority.

Immediately after, thousands of Malaysians from various races and ages have flooded recent PR rallies in Petaling Jaya, Penang and Ipoh to protest against alleged vote-rigging in Election 2013 and the legitimacy of the BN government.