The Election Commission defends itself against the DAP for allegedly undermining the party in an Utusan Malaysia report.
Citing his statements printed in the Umno-owned Malay daily Utusan Malaysia today, Wan Ahmad told FMT that it was not his intention to undermine the DAP.
“I was speaking to Utusan as an EC official, that is the body in charge of the display of campaign materials. I was not speaking against DAP, or am being biased towards BN,” he said.
“I have nothing against the DAP, but people have just misjudged me.”
Earlier today, DAP national publicity secretary Tony Pua slammed Wan Ahmad for taking sides with the BN in the Utusan report.
The Malay daily quoted Wan Ahmad as saying: “It’s not wrong for me to say that there were racially-based campaigns in all the Sarawakian cities, of which the DAP played a big part.”
“Many people have such views, not just me,” he said.
Wan Ahmad also allegedly quoted Information, Communications and Culture Minister Rais Yatim, who accused DAP Pending candidate Violet Yong of saying that Sarawak had had enough of a Melanau as a chief minister.
Racial flames
In the Utusan report, Wan Ahmad warned that if the DAP reused its Sarawak campaign tactics during the upcoming general election, it would “guarantee the spread of racial flames”.
Although not denying his words, Wan Ahmad said that he was only “speaking from facts”.
He also said that he had no control over Utusan’s angle, which prompted the DAP to accuse Wan Ahmad of concocting “desperate lies” to “justify to its political masters”.
“I can’t control them (Utusan). When they asked for my opinion, how the Utusan feature writer put it, I don’t know, that is beyond my control,” he said.
“They probably wanted it to have a strong punchline, but that was not what I had in mind.”
On the racially-based campaigns, Wan Ahmad said: “I was speaking from the context of Section 4 of the Election Offences Act 1954.”
He said that there were many banners put up during the campaign that could cause trouble between both sides of the political divide.
Legal action
Many of these banners, Wan Ahmad said, were seen as personal attacks against BN candidates.
“We saw the DAP banners which said that a vote for SUPP was a vote for Taib Mahmud,” he said.
“They can sell their programmes, and do anything with regard to vote fishing, but when you attack candidates, it becomes personal.”
“We got a lot of complaints from some people. In the spirit of Section 4, those banners shouldn’t have been allowed, but it was too late to take them down,” he added.
Wan Ahmad said he was baffled when DAP leaders ignored his requests to refrain from putting up banners attacking BN leaders.
“We met with DAP Kuching leaders three or four days before the nomination date, but they didn’t listen to us,” he said.
He said that BN component parties also put up banners attacking the DAP in a tit-for-tat action.
On Rais’ accusations against Yong, Wan Ahmad clarified that he was merely quoting what the minister said.
“If what Rais said was at all true, then the statement (allegedly made by the DAP) shouldn’t have been said,” the EC official said.
The DAP has strongly denied the accusation by Rais, and demanded that both Wan Ahmad and Rais apologise over the matter.
Pua said the DAP would take legal action if the duo failed to do so.
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