PETALING JAYA, May 3 — Parties facilitating the alleged transfer of foreigners from Sabah and Sarawak to immigration depots to vote on May 5 are committing “treason”, Bersih co-chairman Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan has said.
She also said that all those who defraud the system are defrauding all legitimate voters and that they should face the full force of the law when found to be guilty.
“This, in our view, is treason. There’s no other way of putting it,” she said at a news conference here today.
“It’s effectively stealing the election away from the rakyat.”
She urged Caretaker Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to make a public statement on the allegations, saying his silence thus far is a concern.
"We are seriously concerned at the silence of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister must speak, especially since his office has been implicated in this."
A spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office has denied any involvement, but Ambiga stressed that Najib should address the allegations personally, not issue a bare denial through someone else.
Yesterday, Umno secretary-general Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor admitted that voters were being flown in to the peninsula, but stressed that the flights were sponsored by “friends” of BN as part of the party’s “get out the vote” campaign for Election 2013.
"But how do you explain that many of the people coming are foreigners?" Maria Chin Abdullah, a Bersih steering committee member, pointed out.
The Anything But Umno (ABU) movement has put up banners throughout the peninsula that warn foreigners against voting in Election 2013, saying that they would be handed over to the police if caught.
However, Bersih steering committee member Wong Chin Huat appealed to foreigners who have been co-opted to vote in Malaysia's 13th general election to "free" themselves and come forward, and promised that the election watchdog would offer them protection.
Maria Chin also revealed that the umbrella watchdog group Pemantau had received 592 reports of voter irregularities as of May 2.
She said there are 333 reports of voters who had registered themselves on the electoral roll who are now deregistered, a third of whom had voted before in a previous election.
She also pointed to 116 reports of Malaysians who had never registered but are now registered without their knowledge or consent, and 54 reports of registered voters who were relocated to another constituency for the upcoming general election.
"We fear that what we have uncovered in this last week is just the tip of the iceberg and that for GE13, tens of thousands of Malaysians will find out on May 5th that they cannot vote or have to travel far away to cast their votes," Pemantau said in a press statement.
Pemantau comprises electoral reform groups Bersih, Malaysians for Free and Fair Elections (Mafrel) and human rights communications group Pusat Komas.
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