PRESS STATEMENT
19 April 2013
The Elections Commission is actively working to prevent Malaysians from doing their constitutional duty and voting on polling day, 5 May 2013.
According to recent media reports in Singapore, Malaysia’s EC intends to prohibit cars with foreign plates from ferrying Malaysian citizens to voting centres across the country.
It is now well past time for the EC to stop its overt and covert attempts in suppressing the right of Malaysians to freely cast their votes in the 13th general election.
Global Bersih condemns this EC action as inflammatory, politically partisan and a serious violation of the commission’s constitutional duties.
The EC already has an invidious reputation for favouring the incumbent Barisan Nasional government. Instead of encouraging as many Malaysians as possible to vote on 5 May, the EC is again stopping a healthy voter turnout with misleading and unconstitutional measures such as this one.
Extending the EC’s spurious argument, notwithstanding its high-handed call to the foreign ministry in Singapore to investigate this matter, the commission could say that Malaysians in Australia should not be allowed to return home to vote flying Qantas, and that only Malaysian carriers such as AirAsia and MAS can be used.
The EC deputy’s latest call to prohibit foreign cars from taking Malaysian voters to the polls is clearly a move by the commission to hinder citizens voting, and more than likely driven by partisan pro-BN, anti-opposition sentiment. The EC’s members must remember they are an independent commission under the Federal Constitution – and not an arm of the government of the day.
Global Bersih urges Malaysians not to succumb to these acts of intimidation, or to accept that the commission has any legal basis for this latest move. Global Bersih also calls on other NGOs, including accredited poll-watchers, to join us in holding this commission to account.
The EC has already excluded Malaysians in Singapore, Brunei and southern Thailand from participating in the postal ballot. The EC has also glaringly failed in addressing the grave issue of how thousands of allegedly non-existent (or phantom) voters are on the electoral rolls while many Malaysian citizens remain disenfranchised
If Global Bersih is accused of partisanship for demanding that the referee works to support a level playing field, Global Bersih is guilty of being partisan to all Malaysian registered voters, including those living in Singapore who are working so hard and innovatively to perform their constitutional duty as citizens.
