phantom voters at army camp

er… actually the heading should be ‘phantom voters at abandoned army camp’.

on tuesday, 19 feb, several MAFREL volunteers, including me, had a brief press conference right in front of the abandoned army camp in jalan sultan ahmad shah (just next to citibank).

the picture you see here, shows us, MAFREL volunteers standing in front of the abandoned army camp. i was the only lady there, so you know which one is me (the fat shorty one. heh).

reporters from all the 3 major languages turned up e.g. kwong wah, sin chew,  the sun, the star and malaysiakini too. however, i only notice the reporting in kwong wah, the sun and malaysiakini. kwong wah – saw it on the hard-copy. since i can’t read mandarin, not sure if it is online.  as for the sun, it only appeared in the hard-copy. malaysiakini report is here. (or you can read it from beritamalaysia).

the report from ong boon keong, MAFREL’s northern region coordinator is as follows:

MAFREL Northern Region held a Press conference this morning to highlight the impropriety by Election Commission to allow 500 postal voters to be registered at a long abandoned army camp along Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah, George Town. 3 soldiers were seen manning the gate fronting the deserted army camp. MAFREL raised 2 objections: 1st the address is certainly indefensible as an address for voters registration. Worse: the army camp was never a residential camp-thus the rot had started long before! MAFREL NR call upon the EC to exercise its power to stop such irregularities, despite EC’s Penang branch stating that they will allow the registration so long that the camp is not `officially’ closed’!

A number of press turned up to this 1st PC by MAFREL NR. Hopefully the PC will attract more volunteers to come forward to fill up the gaps in the volunteers positions –especially in the Penang mainland.

About 10 MAFREL NR members turned up at the PC. NST called to request our press release in the afternoon though their journalist didn’t turn up. By the evening I was told that a report had come out in Kwong Wah paper’s evening edition. Look out for more!

Penang’s ACA `quized’ by MAFREL NR delegation

After the PC in front of the abandoned army camp MAFREL  NR went to ACA office which is 1 building away. The ACA boss was not willing to meet up with MAFREL NR despite a whole day trying to make an appointment on the day before. So we decided to just bump in –as suggested by the ACA’s itself.

One of ACA’s assistant directors Mr Fauzi came to meet 10 of us at the waiting room. ACA was questioned on why they don’t keep complainants informed of the progress of the cases brought forward by the complainants. The answer was a standard one: they don’t want to jeopardize the investigation. However it was pointed out to them that not informing the complainant could open a room for ACA officers to seek corrupt `settlement’ from the wrong doers! Fauzi admit that ACA’s rule is inferior to the Police –who allows complainants to be kept informed of progress of cases under investigation.
(picture here shows us at the ACA’s office. mr fauzi is the one with tie)

ACA was also quizzed on whether it can speed up its investigations on election offences so that cases don’t need to rush for the tight 21 day-deadline for election petition. Fauzi’s answer was an open-ended `investigations take time.’ He was refuted by delegation members who said that ACA need to show its independence or else its notorious delays in investigations will arouse suspicion of political interference which act to shelter the `big fishes’ who seldom get investigated by ACA! The case of the abandoned army camp being used to register non-resident voters was brought up to illustrate possible political interference which could constitute `undue influence’ over voters–but Fauzi flatly reject that the case fall under any corruption offence contained in the Election Offences Act.

Similarly ACA was also asked why ACA would not allow media exposure of complaints already made to ACA. The same excuse of not wanting to jeopardize investigation was used. However it was pointed out that cases can then drag on for years without public pressures from the media. This rule also discourage the public from referring corrupt cases to the ACA.

MAFREL NR delegate George M tested the 24 hour election complaint hotline set up by ACA 04-2271982. There was indeed somebody answering the line at that time.

MAFREL’s delegation member Shankar lodged a complaint against a Gerakan ex-MP for his constituency (Bkt Bendera) for distributing aprons to the residents in the constituency. His family received 2 aprons without making any request-thus constitute `gifting’ –an offence under Election Offences Act. The gifting occurred after the dissolution of the Parliament. Earlier EC made a point in meeting with MAFREL NR that gifting should be stopped after dissolution of Parliament.

Generally MAFREL NR members voiced satisfaction on the outing which held the ACA accountable to the public. Many agreed to attend further meetings with the police, local government, media and the political parties to introduce our mission to the government departments and other actors involved in general elections. We will keep you informed on the sparks that fly in these encounters!