'EC's guidelines will muzzle election watchdog'

Guidelines on election observers set by the Election Commission (EC), including banning them from speaking to the media without the commission's consent, will prevent the watchdog from performing their duties, warned Pakatan Rakyat.

PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution (left) said that the Pakatan secretariat had called a meeting today to look into the guidelines, and has decided to bring up its objection to the EC.

Saifuddin revealed that the guidelines ban election observers from observing the ballot counting process, recording “electoral fraud” without EC officials' consent, and speaking to the media.

It also prohibits observers from revealing information to any third party without the commission's consent, communicating with polling and counting agents and EC staff, as well as from being present at the polling center during voting day.

“Apart from that, the EC only allows a maximum of three observers in a parliamentary constituency,” Saifuddin told reporters today after a press conference at PKR headquarters in Petaling Jaya, today.

The Machang MP described the guidelines as a set of unfair restrictions to the six election monitoring groups.

“This reflects that the EC has no plan to conduct a transparent and fair general election,” he added.

Pakatan to monitor ‘hot seats’

According to Saifuddin, the six groups appointed by the EC as official election observers in the peninsula are Transparency International Malaysia chapter, pollster Merdeka Center, Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas), Centre for Public Policy Studies (CPPS), the Malaysian Youth Council and Promotion of Human Rights (Proham).

However, earlier on Proham, together with election monitoring NGO National Institute for Democracy and Electoral Integrity (NIEI),declined the offer.

Besides the Malaysian Youth Council, the other four groups are stillnegotiating with the EC over the restrictions.

Saifuddin also disclosed that Pakatan will carry out intensive monitoring on 'hot seats' which are the constituencies contested by top Pakatan leaders, constituencies with huge spike in voter numbers, constituencies which had seen vote-buying and chaos in previous elections, and those in which the majority of votes in the last general polls were below three percent of the total votes.

“We discussed that if there is no regulating and monitoring (done) in these constituencies, there could be vote-rigging, which would affect the electoral results”.

[More to follow]