Feb 9 – Sabah Bersih urges the Election Commission to drop a state NGO as an election observer during the looming general election as it was spotted campaigning for BN recently.
“Elections observers should not campaign for any political parties. They should be independent.
“Political campaigning should be left to the parties and not election observers,” said Sabah Bersih spokesperson Andrew Ambrose.
“Why did Federation of Chinese Associations of Sabah (FCAS) publicly run a political campaign and shoot EC in the foot at the same time?”
FCAS acting president TC Goh called upon the Chinese community to continue supporting the Barisan Nasional (BN) state government under the leadership of Chief Minister Musa Aman.
According to the frontpage report in The New Sabah Times on Thursday, Goh in his Chinese New Year message praised the chief minister for the great job he had done.
“It is only
appropriate that on behalf of the Chinese community in Sabah I thank the BN government, under the leadership of Musa for continuously supporting the Chinese community, especially in the aspects of education, culture, sports and religious development,” he was quoted as saying.
In his statement yesterday, Ambrose said FCAS should have functioned as an independent body that assess the conduct of an election process on the basis of national legislation and international standards.
Sabah Bersih wanted the public to respond to the FCAS stateme and “should teach the organisation what it means to be independent and unbiased.”
“We ask the public to do the honorable thing and reject the appointment of FCAS before it makes another political campaign,” added Ambrose.
