PR could have won more in Sabah

A Sabah based activists says Pakatan Rakyat could have won four more parliamentary seats in the state if the electoral roll was clean.

KUALA LUMPUR: Pakatan Rakyat could have won four additional parliamentary seats in Sabah if the state’s electoral roll was clean and free from dubious voters, Sabah-based activist claimed.

Jannie Lasimbang, the Jaringan Orang Asli secretariat director, said the 13th general election outcome for the Tawau, Beaufort, Batu Sapi and Kota Marudu parliamentary constituencies would have been different, if the dubious voters were vetted.

Speaking at a Bar Council’s forum themed “Electoral Offences- Righting The Wrongs” today, she said BN only captured Tawau and Beaufort with 4,979 and 673-vote majority respectively, whereas there were 7,472 and 1,061 dubious voters in these two constituencies.

In Batu Sapi, BN won the seats with 3,798 majority and but there were 3,444 dubious voters in the seat. In the case of Kota Marudu, BN retained the seat with 842-majority but there were quite a sizable number of dubious voters there too, she said.

The activist said the figures were obtained from the ongoing Sabah’s Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI), which heard that there were 60,000 dubious voters in the state’s electoral roll.

She also claimed that the state’s electoral roll also contained some “familiar” problems, such as voters above 85-years old, voters with same name and similar date of birth, and mismatch in gender as indicated in the identification card.

“For example one Yusuf Sapangal, he was born in 1916, but he only registered as a voter in 2009, when he was 93 years old,” she claimed.

In another instance, a man with the name “John Robot” was identified as a female in the electoral roll, although his identification card ended with an odd digit.

Jannie also claimed that there were widespread irregularities in the form of giving out free air tickets and providing cash vouchers and allocations to voters, intimidation and abuse in last month’s 13th General Election.