Pemantau didn’t see foreign voters, blackouts

Bersih's citizen monitoring group, Pemantau, says it did not witness foreign voters or power disruptions during GE13.

UPDATED

PETALING JAYA: There were no incidences of Bangladeshi voters or power blackouts at polling centres under its observation during the 13th general election, said Bersih’s citizen monitoring group Pemantau.

Pemantau said that it did not find evidence of irregularities involving power failures and foreign voters in the 87 parliamentary seats it observed.

“No no, there were no blackouts,” said Bersih steering committee member Maria Chin Abdullah when asked if observers had witnessed any blackouts as alleged by Pakatan Rakyat, as well as by numerous commentators on the social media after the GE.

“We also didn’t know about these foreign voters. There were several reports of that but we didn’t see any,” she added.

However, Maria said she could not vouch for the remaining 135 seats, as they “fell outside our observation, so we have no inkling if there were any irregularities”.

“Our choice of places was based on marginal seats, hot seats and those with a sudden spike in new voters. We only observed these places.”

Asked if Pemantau would be bringing up these issues during the Bersih People’s Tribunal on electoral fraud next week, Maria said, “Yes, we will be bringing up the issue of foreign voters.”

“Our witnesses are required to say probably whatever is on our website,” she said, referring to its report titled ‘Clean and Fair?’ on election irregularities which was launched on Tuesday.

TNB confirms no power disruptions

The report concluded that GE13 was neither clean nor fair and hoped it would help the public decide if the Election Commission should be held accountable for all the alleged irregularities during GE13.

Pemantau, which consists of Bersih, Malaysians for Free and Fair Elections (Mafrel) and human rights group Pusat Komas, had gathered its report based on witnesses’ accounts of what transpired during the polls, referring to incidents of political violence, illegal campaigning, conveyance of voters and even harassment of election observers.

Proponents of clean and fair elections, including several Pakatan Rakyat leaders and activists, had previously claimed to have first-hand information on electoral fraud and video clips to back it.

Bersih meanwhile had said that it was withholding recognition of the BN government until it convenes a tribunal to collate evidence and call witnesses to investigate this.

Pakatan supremo Anwar Ibrahim claimed that certain documents were discovered showing that there were Bangladeshis, Filipinos and Indonesians who were brought in by Barisan Nasional as voters.

He also claimed that more than 40,000 dubious voters from Sabah and Sarawak had entered the country on chartered flights allegedly arranged by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO).

Anwar added he had “credible documentary evidence” to support his claims.

Tenaga Nasional Berhad meanwhile confirmed that there were no power disruptions during vote-counting in GE13 following claims that were such incidences, which were widely spread through the social media.

After ruling Barisan Nasional’s win, Anwar vowed to stay in his post and lead a campaign challenging the results of the general election that delivered his coalition a controversial defeat.

Pemantau’s report can be downloaded at www.bersih.org.