DAP claims EC acted unfairly during Segamat objection hearing

DAP says Johor Registrar of Electors had rejected one objection based on a deputy minister's statement after deeming it to be 'not credible'.

KUALA LUMPUR: DAP has cried foul over the procedural unfairness in the objection hearings pertaining to the entry of 949 army personnel and their spouses in the Segamat constituency.

Its legal bureau secretary Michelle Ng Mei Sze said Johor Registrar of Electors had rejected one objection deeming the Parliament Hansard (official record) as not credible.

Ng said the applicant was told by the registrar that the Hansard produced “cannot be believed”.

“The Hansard contained a part of parliamentary proceedings where the deputy defence minister admitted that the construction of the Segamat camp had not been completed.

“The applicant then asked what needed to be done for the applicant to persuade the registrar.

“The registrar said the applicant had to bring the deputy minister in as a witness. However, when the applicant requested to adjourn the proceedings for this purpose, the registrar refused,” Ng said at a press conference held at the DAP headquarters here today.

It is believed that the Hansard produced was related to Deputy Defence Minister Mohd Johari Baharum, who had on Nov 28, defended the reason for the transfer of the 1,051 army voters registered with the Segamat camp as their address when the building is yet to be completed.

Ng said that on a separate occasion, an adjournment was granted to an army officer to produce a new full name list when DAP had objected to a discrepancy.

“The name list given as proof of residence was questionable as it had only two out of the 20 proposed voters that were being objected to in that session.

“Yet the registrar adjourned that hearing to another date for the military captain to obtain the full name list,” Ng said.

She also cited another incident where applicants who were not fluent in Bahasa Malaysia had requested for translators, but were refused.

“The applicants were made to take oaths in Bahasa Malaysia when they did not understand the language fully.

“The registrar had requested an EC officer to read out the oath, but even after reading it out, the applicants still could not understand what was being read out.

“The applicants had to follow after the officer despite not understanding what was going on during the proceedings and therefore could not communicate their reasons for objection.”

Ng called for the EC to perform its duty in a manner that is beyond reproach.

“The two examples that I have cited calls into question as to whether the EC does or can even ‘enjoy public confidence’,” she said, adding that all objections made by the 48 applicants in Segamat were rejected.

The 48 voters in the Segamat parliamentary constituency in Johor had sought legal redress to quash the entry of 949 army personnel and their spouses as new voters in an army camp that they are not residing in, as the camp is yet to be completed.

The group, led by Abdul Wahab Hassan, filed the judicial review application at the Kuala Lumpur High Court registry last week after the EC’s Registrar of Electors dismissed their objection. The dismissal meant that the EC could now include the names in the third quarter supplementary rolls.

The 48 voters had applied for the court to quash the decision to enter the 949 names and a declaration that the exercise was unconstitutional.

The DAP had also questioned the move of the army men’s transfer as to whether they were done to “save” the federal seat from falling into opposition hands in GE14.

In the last general election, held on May 5, 2013, MIC president S Subramaniam was the BN candidate who defeated PKR’s Chua Jui Meng with a 1,217 majority, from the 38,857 valid votes cast in the Segamat parliament seat. -FMT