PETALING JAYA: Former Transparency International-Malaysia (TI-M) president Tunku Abdul Aziz Tunku Ibrahim(pic) today urged Bersih and Pakatan Rakyat to state their stand on the purported strategies designed to create “chaos” on polling day.
“We have received related documents that appear to indicate that there are plans by certain parties to disrupt the 13th general election by creating chaos and besmirching the Election Commission [EC] to undermine the public’s confidence in the integrity of the democratic electoral process.
“Training sessions, known as PACABA, have been conducted for polling and counting agents by the NGO Tindak Malaysia. One particular aspect of such training sessions is to teach the voter to guard the secrecy of his or her vote,” he said.
He further claimed that people are being trained to demand for random ballot paper in order to guarantee the secrecy of their votes.
Tunku Aziz said asking for random ballot paper means that a voter will demand for a ballot paper from the middle or bottom of the pile and not the one on the top.
“The people attending such training are encouraged to challenge the election clerks on duty of committing an electoral offence if they refuse to issue a random ballot to the voter, while polling agents have been trained to support such a request by the voter.
“These people are specially trained to cause trouble and when the police have to intervene and remove the people involved, this would make it look like the election is dirty and video recordings of such instances will attract a lot of international attention,” claimed Tunku Aziz.
He said that such training sessions have been conducted at various places, in “certain state-owned venues under the administration of the Pakatan state governments.”
“They are teaching people to make a mockery of the democratic system. These are also strategies to demonise the EC and to make Malaysia look like a country run by a bunch of dictators.
“We have also seen an internal PKR document dated Dec 15, 2012 which lists out various steps to create chaos and dissatisfaction against the EC on polling day by raising repeated protests at the polling station so as to cause the other voters waiting in the queue to be unhappy and dissatisfied with the EC,” he said.
Negative perception
He said this is to delay the entire voting process thereby causing long queues at certain designated polling stations.
“All these are designed to cast a negative perception on the EC and stir public outrage against the EC, bringing it into disrepute.
“The PKR document and what that has been promoted by Tindak Malaysia show how easily chaos can be created at polling stations on polling day,” he said.
Tunku Aziz also urged Bersih co-chairperson S Ambiga to state her stand in the issue.
“Ambiga should make a declaration as to her involvement or otherwise in this. She should come out in the open and say whether she is a part of it or not.
“Also, since Tindak Malaysia by its own admission works with Bersih and Bersih is also known to be close to leaders from the Pakatan Rakyat coalition, we want to ask Bersih: does Bersih condone such training sessions insisting on randomisation of ballot papers by Tindak Malaysia?
“If yes, has Bersih ever made this one of its demands for electoral reforms to the EC? If not, is there a hidden agenda?” he asked.
The former DAP vice-chairman and senator also challenged all political parties to state their stand on the randomisation of the ballot paper.
“Randomisation of the ballot paper has never been an issue in all the past 12 general elections. Such an attack against the integrity of an institution like the EC is totally uncalled for and tantamount to undermining the entire democratic and electoral process of this country.
“We challenge all political parties participating in the election to sign a public declaration that they will not under any circumstances be involved in any move to disrupt the electoral process on polling day,” he said.
