‘MIC needs re-election to save face’

MIC's former Youth chief questions irregularities in recounts during the MIC party polls and wants a re-election to save party image.

PETALING JAYA: Former MIC Youth chief T Mohan urged the party to conduct a re-election for the Central Working Committee(CWC) over alleged irregularities in the recent polls.

In a press statement, Mohan the candidate for vice president, alleged that the election was not transparent and was carried out by a toothless election commission. He said it was unfair to those candidates who lost on an unlevelled playing ground.

“In a democratic process, winning and losing a party elections is a norm. In the contest for the recently concluded veep election while accepting the verdict, Ii would fail in my duty if the conduct of the entire election process is not subject to critical appraisal,” he said.

He added that the choice of location for the election in a hotel ballroom, and counting of the votes at a makeshift center in the hotel’s Chinese restaurant itself has made a mockery of the seriousness of the MIC party election machinery.

In the vice presidential race with just 1,427 ballots to be counted, there was variance in all three recounts, with a surprise increase of more than 70 ballots(237 votes) in the final recount.

Following is the details of the counts:

“Following the stark contrast in the veeps’ recounts, I am of the view that it is only fair to the following six candidates who lost by just a margin of 40 votes, could be possible winners if a well co-ordinated recount or if required even re-election is done for CWC.”

S Ananthan(544 votes)- same votes as the last two candidates in CWC

MM Samy(539 votes)

L Manickam(523 votes)

S Ganesan(516 votes)

M Karuppanan(502 votes)

SP Manivasagam(501 votes)

Mohan insisted that it will be the leadership’s responsibility to urgently attend to all election irregularities so that all those elected to the top office can continue to occupy their positions with dignity.

He added that if the party leadership fails to do so, then the public opinion will suspect the leadership of wrong doing and distort the credibility of the leadership.

“It is the time to save MIC’s image by reviewing the polls’ procedure,” said Mohan.

MACC and ROS may be approached

Meanwhile, M Marimuthu, a former CWC member claims that he is planning to bring the party election to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission(MACC) and Registrar of Societies(ROS) after alleged ‘money politics’.

Marimuthu said that he was shocked by an open statement by N Nagalingam from Mersing division who admitted that he received RM 5,000 from several candidates.

Nagalingam made the startling revelation while debating the presidential address at the AGM.

He was however scolded by the AGM chairman S Kumaran who said “the election is over, so let’s not talk about it.”

However, Marimuthu stressed that money politics was one of the main reason he lost in the CWC polls.

“I was elected as CWC member in 2009, despite I not endorsed by former president S Samy Vellu because of the clean and fair election at the time,” he said.

“But, here ‘someone’ threatened the delegates and bought over them to vote for his choice of candidates,” he added.

“Thus, I would bring this allegation to MACC and ROS to seek justice,” he said.

In a related development, another delegate from Selangor who wish not to be named admitted to FMT that he received money as bribe on the election day itself.

He also forwarded a picture showing him holding several envelopes given by the candidates.

“In total I received RM2250 from them at the lobby of the hotel,” he said.