Shut The Economist up by inviting int’l observers, EC told

The Election Commission can easily disprove claims of electoral fraud and silence their critics by inviting credible international election observers, said PKR communications director Fahmi Fadzil.

He said that the EC must actually prove that the conduct of the elections was fair and on par with international standards, instead of issuing statements to rebut critics.

"It is not enough for a body to claim it is clean, free and fair," he said when contacted.

Fahmi was responding to the EC’s scathing criticisms of an article by The Economist, titled "Stop, thief! Malaysia’s PM is about to steal an election."

The article argued that BN was "shamelessly" redrawing electoral boundaries in its favour in order to achieve an "ill-deserved victory."

Fahmi said the fact remains that the EC was not independent, as it reports to the Prime Minister’s Department.

Moreover, there are constitutional provisions which required the EC to report its redelineation plans to the prime minister, which further eroded the commission’s independence and integrity.

Why is EC afraid?

Similarly, Bersih secretariat member Mandeep Singh (photo) questioned why the EC was "afraid" of inviting international election observers, despite repeatedly claiming that elections here are free and fair.

"Why ‘hesitate’ to show how ‘clean’ the Malaysian general elections are to the world?" he wrote on his Facebook page.

Mandeep said the EC’s record as the custodian of Malaysia’s elections was tainted, as recent events had shown that they had denied representation to about 200 groups of voters in the Selangor local inquiry process.

He added that in the past, the EC also supplied electronic copies of the voter list for political parties, but this practice has stopped, making it difficult for the public to scrutinise the list for fraud.

"Has the EC forgotten about the 900 instances of ‘Fatimah binti Abdullah’ appearing on the electoral roll?

"What about the so-called ‘indelible’ ink? Have you forgotten what happened in 2013? How long did the ink stay on?" he said.

When contacted, Mandeep said what he wrote on his Facebook page were his personal opinions, and did not reflect the views of Bersih. -Mkini