KUALA LUMPUR, May 6 – Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) advisor Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s claims that the 13th General Election was rigged and his call for the Election Commission’s (EC) to explain alleged instances of irregularities as nothing but politically motivated accusations.
Political analyst and Social Science and Humanities Faculty of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia lecturer Prof Madya Dr Samsul Adabi Mamat said the accusations by Anwar was baseless and uncalled for because it questions the credibility of the EC which has taken various initiatives to ensure a fair and just election process.
“One strong evidence is the presence of international observers, doesn’t it prove EC’s transparency? What else is the issue here,” he told Bernama adding that from the very beginning there has been improvement in the process, especially the use of indelible ink.
“No issue has been raised from the constituency that he won, but rather he claimed that he was unhappy with the overall results,” he said.
His fellow faculty colleague Prof Dr Samsudin Abd Rahim said Anwar was actually over confident that the result would be in favour of Pakatan Rakyat and that was why he is disappointed.
“If he cannot accept the result at the federal level, he must also not accept the state level results, especially states like Selangor, Penang and Kelantan,” he said.
Samsul said as a politician, Anwar must accept any shortfalls or positive points in a general election.
Meanwhile, commenting on the outcome of the 13th General Election (GE13), Universiti Sains Malaysia’s School of Social Sciences’ Associate Professor of Criminology Dr P Sundramoorthy said Malaysians have to move towards political maturity and progressive democracy.
The highest voter turnout in this GE, with 84 percent for Parliament seats, has reflected the country’s political affairs compared to previous general elections.
“The will of the people was put into practice. They wanted to see changes and I feel this is where democracy was being practiced where people act responsibly by indicating that they did not want to express anything by demonstration or rally but through votes,” he pointed out.
As such, he said the decision taken through casting votes to show their satisfaction or disappointment had proven that the people have chosen the proper channel in this democratic country.
Sundramoorthy also said the May 5 polling also showed that police were truly exemplary by serving the country and people with professionalism and efficiency where peace and speculation were well maintained from the beginning of the campaigning period to the day of the election.
“Although the pressure from various groups of people can be tremendous but police managed to overcome them without bias…looking at the achievement, I feel that they have done a good job in maintaining democracy,” he said.
Meanwhile, Assoc Prof Dr Sarjit Singh of the Department of Social Sciences and Development, Faculty of Human Ecology, Universiti Putra Malaysia, said the increased number of seats for the Pakatan Rakyat also could be seen as one of the examples that the nation was moving towards progressive democracy.
“People are aware of the political scenario…it is a very good improvement because peoples’ awareness is there and they are willing to participate. This
shows a significant sign that people are concerned about the future of their country,” said the political analyst. He also said the result of the election clearly indicated that both Barisan Nasional (BN) and Pakatan Rakyat were strong in their own ways of reaching out to the people, especially in rural areas.
“However, Kedah had been recaptured by BN because I feel the PAS leadership was not strong enough,” he said.
In the GE13 which ended yesterday, BN won 133 Parliament seats while Pakatan Rakyat accounted for 89, allowing the BN to form the government, yet again.
BERNAMA
