DEFORMASI

Haris Ibrahim, respected as an independent political voice of Malaysian conscience, has questioned the integrity of the PKR party polling for the deputy president position, which is supposed to be contested (until this morning) by 3 persons, Azmin Ali, Mustaffa Kamil Ayub and Zaid Ibrahim.

This morning Zaid Ibrahim withdrew from the contest and also resigned every one of his PKR appointments and positions, obviously in utter disgust with the party's deputy president election process.

Haris wrote in his post Indeed, who is lying?, a query he posed to PKR regarding the questionable party election process, the following:

… is the safekeeping of these ballot papers now entrusted to staff at the Secretariat who were intended to assist the central election committee on administrative matters, and no more?

If so, what other duties and functions of the central election committee have been assumed or, worse, seized, by these Secretariat staff?

Who is overseeing the elections, in truth?

If it is not the central election committee, then who?

The Secretariat staff again?

Free and fair elections overseen by Secretariat staff, then, and not Molly Cheah and her committee, anymore?

How convenient!

From the above it appears that Dr Molly Cheah who is the chair of the PKR central election committee is not oversighting the election process for the party’s deputy president, while the secretariat is.

Hmmm!!!

The Malaysian Insider reported that Anwar Ibrahim came out (as to be expected when it involves his Azmin Ali) to defend Azmin’s amazing lead in the polls, stating “…the party had already answered the allegations by social activist Haris Ibrahim yesterday regarding claims of vote-rigging.”

Not so, riposted Haris (maybe he said “Bullsh*t” but of course I won’t attribute such a harsh word to Haris). Haris said all the explanations by the PKR poll official have not answered his question of how he Haris came to be in possession of the PKR ballot paper for the contest for the party's deputy presidency, regardless whether the ballot was 'old' or not. It was frighteningly available to Haris, a non-PKR member!

Haris wrote:

... the informant explained that the central election committee returning officer could manipulate the list of members attending at the ongoing elections, where voter turnout is low, adjust it upwards and stuff additional ballot papers into the ballot box.

This is an important question that has gone unanswered. The very fact of my possession of the same [ballot paper] contradicts the very first statement quoted.

At 2 pm today, I met and had coffee with Dr Molly Cheah, the chairperson of the PKR central election committee, the body tasked with the duty of ensuring that the ongoing PKR elections is indeed free and fair.

I met her to hand over the copies of the ballot papers received from the informant, the serial numbers duly removed.

Interestingly, this was the first she was actually seeing the ballot papers.

It is for her now to verify, if she cares to, if these were indeed from the batch of ballot papers printed by HQ for use in weekend No.1 of the party elections, from 29th October to 31st October.

So, much as Anwar would like to dismiss both Zaid and Mustapha’s complaints of polling irregularities, the fact that a non-PKR member, Haris Ibrahim, came into possession of the ballot papers is a serious, severe and suspicious indictment of the integrity of the PKR polls.

Then Haris continued with his investigation, writing even more scathingly:

Zaid’s political secretary Rashid Azad Khan said the polls should be called off in view of allegations of irregularities and claims of phantom voters.

"For example, our polling agent reported that the voter turnout in Kubang Pasu was only 84."

“But the initial vote tally showed that Azmin clinched 80 votes while Zaid garnered 76 votes."

“Where did the additional 72 votes come from? Could they be phantom voters?’’

Rashid also said the agents had reported that there was a 30-minute blackout immediately after balloting ended at 4pm Friday.

“Candidates’ agents were not allowed in, and the ballot boxes were not sealed at the time,’’ he claimed, adding one of the election officer was caught on camera wearing Azmin’s campaign badge raising questions over their impartiality.

Then, as if the PKR polls could be negotiated a la ch'in ch'ai ch'in ch'ai, after the complaint on above, this was what the election monitor decided on:

Rashid claimed that following complaints, the election monitor decided that the Kubang Pasu result should be a tie of 81-81.

“I am appalled. How can the results simply be amended?’’ he asked”

Wah, pun boleh tawar, saperti jual beli katak.

You can them out of UMNO but you sure can’t take UMNO out of them!

Reformasi my bloody foot. It’s plain DEFORMASI!