MIC polls ballot papers missing?

Ballots cast at the MIC annual general assembly last week is yet to reach the party headquarters and this has raised further suspicion of foul play at the polls.

PETALING JAYA:  The 1,600 ballot papers printed for the MIC elections, held in Malacca last week, has yet to reach the MIC headquarters.

Party sources confirmed not knowing the whereabouts of the ballots papers used in the contentious polls.

“Out of the 1,600 ballot papers only 1,452 were used. But all the ballots, either used or otherwise, should have been surrendered to the headquarters  mainly to the secretary general and the election committee by now for safekeeping.

“It has been a week since the election and the president has yet to announce  the secretary general,” said the source.

MIC held its election to pick three vice-presidents and 23 central working committee members last week.

The polls process came under close scrutiny after candidates found disparity between votes cast and ballots that were actually counted.

Two former party Youth chiefs T Mohan and SA Vigneswaran had publicly questioned the integrity of the party’s election committee. There have also been calls for a re-election.

Eight candidates contested for the three vice president positions while 88 aspirants fought it out for the 23 CWC seats.

MIC  secretary-general A Sakthivel  earlier confirmed that several candidates had filed appeals against the results of the polls.

Calls are also growing louder for the party leadership to clear the air over the issue.

Pending questions

A vice presidential candidate told FMT, since ballots have not been surrendered to the party headquarters it can be “manipulated” to suit the results announced.

“I will not put it past them to even print new ballots to suit the results announced,” he said.

Asked who he meant by ‘them’, the leader said party members knew who he was referring to.

“I spoke to several people at the party headquarters and as off yesterday evening, they still have not received the ballots.

“Is this transparency? Is this a fair and free elections? There are so many questions that the leadership has to answer.

“This silence is not going to solve the problem, in fact it is going from bad to worse. A proper explanation should be given on the disparity in the number of votes during recounts in the veep race.

“They should also explain how votes increased from the first to third recount,” he said.

A CWC candidate told FMT that several other CWC aspirants were equally upset as to how the polls were conducted.

“If there is an increase in the number of ballots for the vice president race, then it would also alter the CWC ballots.

“Why was there no review of CWC results? Are they telling us that some delegates just voted for the veep election and not the CWC race.

“This is ridiculous. MIC is heading for a major problem. Some leaders have already lodged their displeasure to the Registrar of Societies.

“Everything is being done very silently. I expect things to boil over soon,” he added.

Who’s  Mala?

On another front, a party election committee member confirmed the presence of a woman, who went by the name of Mala, in the counting and tabulation of votes at the polls.

Another vice president candidate, late last week , questioned the presence of the woman, who none of the MIC leaders knew,  at the counting centre. She was not even staff of the party headquarters.

“Yes the election committee saw her. But we never questioned her because she was using a ‘secretariat’ tag issued by the headquarters.

“We thought she was a helper or a MIC Wanita member. But now we realise nobody knew her,” he said, not wanting to be named.

The woman, apparently was close to a party leader’s wife, who was involved in canvassing for votes prior to the polls.

Meanwhile neither the party president nor his deputy can be reached and appear unable to rectify the problems, said an election committee member.