Last Friday a Lun Bawang youth Edwin Singa Pelipus was murdered by some gang in Lawas town center-this sparked off a few days of peaceful mass protest by the Lun Bawang community, wo have been fed up with rising crime in Lawas and police’s negligence about it(police are quite active againt protest by Lun Bawang eg against the Sabah Sarawak Gas Pipeline) . Most of the main stream and side stream media seems to avoid the news for whatever reason. Those that cover it try to paint it as a racial and violent prone action. Eg Borneo Post `reported’ Malay community rally crowd to `confront’ the Lun Bawang-without a shred of evidence. Unfortunately some `neutral’ alternative media picked this up in the well practiced cut and paste `journalism’. Readers who don’t check out local reports/blogs tend to be taken in-with some even thought it would be a good idea to cover up some `ugly incidence’. The cold-blooded murder and the breach of security seems to meet a conspiracy to side-track them! Security will be a top election issue-no matter how media cover up this issue. TV Sarawak had documented a complaint of a local Lun Bawang from Long Sukang that Lawas police was negligent and even complicit in mis-handling minor foot-ball fights by students. The mistreatment of the student involved was brought to court with assistance by the local Assemblyman Baru Bian and their complaint was upheld by the court recently. The police that allow drugs and gangs to run free in Lawas is now on hot-seat to deliver justice. Don’t let the issue be side-tracked-or worse-covered up!

This is an update from Paul Bian:
Update from Lawas. (26th September 2012)

The protest organised by the Lawas community yesterday went successfully without any incident. They March to the Police station to submit a memorandum demanding Justice for the brutally murdered victim, the late Edwin Singa Pelipus. There was no riots in Lawas as was alleged by some. The Police Chief of Lawas thanked the organiser for the peaceful event and promise to look into their grouses. Among the content of memorandum are

1. Request the police to investigate this brutal case swiftly without prejudice. (The group responsible for the murder have several criminal cases connected to them but no charge was ever brought against them until now. There is allegation that this group have ‘protection’ from higher up).

2. Rid Lawas of the drug menace (Syabu). ( Its seems that the suspect were high on drug while committing the murder)

3. They want to stress that the protest is about demanding for justice and has nothing to do with race or religion. ( Among the 13 suspect under police remand now is an Iban youth and a Lun Bawang youth.)

We urge the public not to listen to rumors of racial clashes in Lawas. Lawas town is back to normal today and we urge everyone to remain calm and do not listen to rumors or spread rumors about racial clashes happening in Lawas.

All the Lawas community wants is Peace and Harmony

Caught distributing money for vote buying at last Sarawak state election!

Yellow Cards Campaign

Aim

To mobilise citizens into monitoring the coming 13^th General Elections in Malaysia as a collective means to keep a close watch on electoral frauds, and to help clean up the messy elections in the country over time!

Subtitle: let all election violators tremble at their `boss’ this time!

10    step-Methodology

1. Citizens will be familiarized with 10 common malpractices/ violations/ irregularities in election administration and campaigns;
2. When they observe a clear  malpractice  they would, where possible, at their personal decision, deliver a Yellow Card to the candidates/candidates agents/party agents/election administrators etc where the malpractice/s is identified on one side of the card, together with legal penalty where it applies; If face-to-face delivery is not possible/preferred, the card can be delivered later by other means eg sent via SMS, email, publicise in media or web sites, mailed to campaign office, Election Commission office, sent in together with other complaints etc.
3. The candidates/agents are given opportunity to answer the accusation on the spot or later in writing;
4. The delivery of the card will be done in public view and fully documented; Where the cards are not well received the video documentation of the delivery will be uploaded to public media eg You Tube to let the public judge  the response from the accused candidate/agents/ administrators;
5. Should the candidate/agents/administrators present reasons for their action the reasons will be evaluated by a panel of advisors of the monitoring team-and the accusation can be withdrawn if the reasons are found to be acceptable in terms of free and fair elections norms; They can also apologise and stop the practice to remove themselves from the score sheet-and they will be put under certain period of monitoring before that will take effect;
6.  Otherwise their name, face and the documented evidence will be publicized as a case of  election violation in a name-and-shame exercise;
7. The Yellow Cards score sheet will be publicized in web site as well as on a physical bill board where it is open to public view-like the death tolls caused by traffic accidents;
8. The accumulated results will be released daily and also be presented to the party chiefs just ahead of the cooling period of election campaign, as a climax event for the Yellow Card campaign; a `Champion of election violations’ will be identified on individual and party basis ahead of the poll through our advisors panel as well as web polling(50:50);
9. However the polling day violations will be added to the final report-which will be announced in a press conference soon after the polling day;
10. 10 common election offences from election stakeholders

Government departments(police, directors of departments, chief secretary):

1-      involve in party campaigning or bias towards parties

2-      freedom to campaign restricted

Media:

3-      unfair/bias media reports

Candidates/parties:

4-      abuses of government vehicles/buildings/personnel/programs/fund for party

campaign

5-       vote buying

6-      violence and intimidation

Election administrators:

7-      Compromise of voters rights (voter lists, disabled, women, phantom voters etc)

8-      Not enforcing or selective enforcement against election violations

9-      Unfair action during polling, counting, tallying and release of results;

10-Complaint handling unsatisfactory

7-point Programs

1-      Identify the target areas for monitoring; criteria: marginal states and seats;

Priority states: Sabah and Sarawak; for West Malaysian states: certain seats in Selangor, Kedah, Perak, Terengganu and Negeri Sembilan;

2-       Recruitment and training- through public talks, road shows, over web site; in groups’ meetings, in media etc; Each volunteer team consist of a volunteer to present the card and also another person to document the presentation of the card; Each team may have more members to help out on contingencies;

3-      The campaign will also receive public complaints of violations-but unless they are verified they will be tagged as unverified and displayed separately from those verified and given a yellow card; Preferably the yellow cards are given on the spot; but if that is not possible it can be given later-but still as a public event/in public locations;

4-      The campaign period start from when the Parliament is dissolved-and last till the polling is finished; The campaign will be launched in the media(press conference) as well as in new media (video); monitors can participate for whatever extent they can afford-and registration ahead is needed;

5-      A 24 hours secretariat will be set up in the capital to receive complaints and to update the score sheet of violations;

6-      Monitor Team members may get a Yellow T-shirt, a yellow cap; a name tag, a whistle and certified copies of the official yellow cards-to prevent any abuse of the yellow cards by unrelated parties; They need to have a member who possess or able to access a camera in each team; Each monitor need to undergo a minimum of training before they are accepted;

7-      The delivery of the Yellow Card can be fun and effective to deter the habitual violators at the same time; Make it a challenge to deliver at least 1 Yellow Card if you think the elections are not going right!  

The organizer

Preferably a consortium of non-partisan civil society bodies; All groups who agree to the above programs and objectives will be welcome to participate at all levels of the Yellow Card Campaign;

Funding

Funds will be kept to minimum –but where needed the steering committee consisting of reps of participating groups and committed individuals will organize some fund raising activities; The budget will cover mainly some secretariat expenses; Cameras will not be provided;

The participation is entirely voluntary and motivated primarily by the potential of this monitoring program to enable individuals and groups, to produce effective impact on the election/political culture in Malaysia, where much is needed to make it attain international norms of being a more credible election.

4 Criteria of success

We will judge the performance of the campaign on the following 4 criteria:

a-      the level of participation and results of monitors;

b-      the response from the candidates/parties

c-      the response from the public-media included;

d-     the response from the government, election administrators;

Reporting

A preliminary report will be produced immediately after the poll to release the accumulated results and our interpretation of the results;

A final report will also be produced to document the entire campaign within a period after the election complaints/petitions are settled (max 6 months)

Proposer  

MEO-Net

Enq-Ong BK    013-5900339

meonet2010@gmail.com

Participating groups: (The more the merrier!)

EC: Don’t dispute voters registration using code ’71′

by Sandra Sokial. Posted on August 9, 2012, Thursday

KOTA KINABALU: The Election Commission (EC) yesterday denied that many foreign workers have been included in the electoral rolls using the identification code of ’71′ which referred to Malaysians born overseas.

Its chairman, Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Yusof, said the matter should not have been disputed as to date only 171,023 registered voters were recorded having identification cards with that code.

Before 2001, code ’71′ was used for Malaysians born abroad and foreigners who had obtained permanent resident status.

However, after 2001, all foreigners who obtained PR were no longer referred with code ’71′ and were in fact using the code for their respective country of birth, such as 66 for Singapore and 61 for Indonesia, he told reporters after launching the ‘EC meets political party leaders and the media session’ here yesterday

Abdul Aziz commented on the matter after certain quarters disputed the use of code ’71′ purportedly to register foreign workers as voters after several names with code ’71′ as the middle number of their identification cards were detected on the electoral rolls.

He said that according to the EC’s master electoral rolls, there were 8,743 registered voters in Sabah and the Federal Territory of Labuan with code ’71′ and Selangor recorded the highest number with 32,485 people.

He added that there had also been requests from voters working in other states in Malaysia to cast their votes in the place they are currently in, for their state, but it is not possible.

“It will be a precedent. Others may make the same request and it would create another problem.

“Besides, it is normal to see many Sabahans or people from other states to be in places like Selangor, as they migrate to seek employment,” he said.

Abdul Aziz explained that for one to continue practising their rights as voters, they may change to their current address.

He also said there was always doubt on the electoral roll despite EC’s daily effort to ‘clean’ it.

“Some claim it is ‘dirty’, but I can assure it is clean. There may be some technical problems, but we will not let it compromise any condition. We too want it to be 100 per cent clean, but how can you do it when a minute later, someone dies or changes his citizenship, this thing is dynamic and change can happen within seconds.

“But there is not much we (EC) can do without the cooperation from the people. EC is bound by the law, we cannot simply make any changes without the request of the owner,” he said.

“We conduct our meeting on a monthly basis and every month, a lot of corrections are done. As of June this year, a total of 2,919 corrections were made, and locality tops the list, followed by names, gender and religion,” he said..

Abdul Aziz added that in the first quarter of this year, a total of 18,412 mistakes were detected, and the number grew during the second quarter to 27,785.

He said it was also beyond their jurisdiction to delete the names of aging voters.

“We cannot classify them as doubtful voters or inactive citizens, unless someone comes and reports to NRD that they have passed away or have changed their citizenship. Meaning, for as long as their names are in NRD, we cannot delete their names and they have the right to vote. Mind you, the oldest voter is from Sabah at the age of 129, followed by a Sarawakian,” he said.

Last year, he disclosed that a total of 68,516 names were deleted after they had been declared deceased by NRD.

He also urged registered voters to check their voting details and status within the third quarter of this year to be eligible to vote in the coming 13th general election.

“Voters must fully utilise the months of July, August and September to check that their details are correct, such as the spelling of their names, locality, gender and identity card numbers.

“If there is any mistake, correction can be done at the National Registration Department and notify the EC immediately for rectification,” he said.

He disclosed that there are four easy methods to check their status and details, namely through their website at http://www.spr.gov.my, or short messaging system by typing spr(space)semak(space)MyKad number, or visit or contact their headquarters or offices at the respective states.

The untouchable

by Peter Sibon, reporters@theborneopost.com. Posted on August 2, 2012, Thursday

Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof

EC chief says commission not even answerable to PM, DPM and Parliament

KUCHING: Sick and tired of being labelled a BN government tool by the opposition, Election Commission (EC) chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof broke his silence yesterday and came out charging at his critics.

He blasted back by saying the EC was not even answerable to the prime minister or his deputy.

“As chairman of the EC, nobody controls me. Even the prime minister never asked me to do this or that.

“Likewise, the deputy prime minister also never asked me to do this or do that,” Abdul Aziz told reporters after the EC gave a briefing to officials of political parties and members of the media at Kuching Hilton yesterday.

Abdul Aziz added that not even Parliament could tell the EC what to do. Parliament could only make proposals to the body, he said.

“But the final decision is still made by the EC.

“We are as free as it could possibility be.”

On the recent exercise when a Commission was set by Parliament for the EC to be reformed, he said it accepted seven and rejected three proposals.

On the 300,000 people in the state who have yet to register as voters, Abdul Aziz said this showed there was freedom of expression in the country.

“We have tried our level best to get everyone to be registered, including seeking the assistance of political parties to get those eligible to be registered, but we really cannot force people to register.

“It’s their choice.”

He added that even developed states like Selangor and Johor experienced this problem.

“But in Sarawak, the other factor could be logistics due to the vastness of the state.”

On the coming general election, he said that 1,05,190 Sarawakians would be eligible to vote.

Meanwhile, during a question-and-answer session, state EC director Datu Takun Sunggah had a heated argument with PKR’s probable candidate for Miri, Dr Michael Teo Yu Keng, who alleged that ballot boxes could be tempered with by the EC.

Takun advised Dr Teo to get his facts right or to come up with proofs of any wrong doings.

“You can stay in a police lock up to guard the ballot boxes yourself to see if they are tempered with,” said Takun, to which Dr Teo shot back by saying that he was merely seeking clarification on whether the EC was indeed an independent and trustworthy body.

Takun responded by saying that he (Dr Teo) could always bring his case to court for it to decide.

Read more: http://www.theborneopost.com/2012/08/02/the-untouchable/#ixzz22SuIbfyK

Uma Jawe residents ready to swap ‘jelatongs’ for longhouse

Posted on July 30, 2012, Monday

FLOATING CHURCH: The floating SIB church at Uma Jawe in a dilapidated state.

BAKUN: The 30 odd families of Uma Jawe, who are currently living in jelatongs (floating houses), have identified a site to build a new longhouse, revealed its village chief Janting Ibau.

He claimed they had obtained permission from the relevant authorities to do so.

“We would like to settle down for good as jelatongs are a temporary measure after our longhouses were submerged when the Bakun hydroelectric power (HEP) dam was impounded on October 13, 2010,” Janting told The Borneo Post at Uma Jawe, about four hours’ boat ride from here, on Friday.

He revealed that although most of the people from his village were relocated to Sg Asap Resettlement Scheme, some villagers preferred to stay behind.

“As they cannot be forced to leave their ancestral homes, they instead built jelatongs and stayed put.”

However, he said after almost two years of staying afloat, they wanted to have permanent houses so that they don’t have to constantly spend time and money to repair their jelatongs.

“Now many people from Sg Asap want to come back as this land is recognised as our NCR land.”

Janting also revealed that living on jelatongs was not something they were proud of as there were a lot of issues tied to it, such as sanitation, school, healthcare and pollution to the environment.

“I must admit that living in a jelatong is not a healthy lifestyle. But what can we do? We now hope that the relevant authorities will assist us in rebuilding our longhouse so that we can settle here permanently.”

Janting revealed that another key reason for his people to come back and to rebuild their longhouses was because of culture shock at Sg Asap.

“Living in Sg Asap is very expensive because we have to buy almost everything. Over here, we can fish and hunt and gather jungle produce easily. Life is definitely cheaper here compared to at Sg Asap, except that it’s too far away from amenities such as school and clinic.”

Janting disclosed that while his two sons were staying in his longhouse in Sg Asap, he and his wife were tilling the land behind their jelatong.

“We will plant paddy this year and we will open up more land to plant fruit trees and rubber trees as well. In the long run, we would be better off again.”

Meanwhile, Wilson Ugak promised the people there that their church, which was floated with oil drums and floating trees after the impoundment of the dam, would be rebuild.

Most of the people of Uma Jawe are Christians of the Borneo Evangelical Church (SIB) denomination.

Read more: http://www.theborneopost.com/2012/07/30/uma-jawe-residents-ready-to-swap-jelatongs-for-longhouse/#ixzz228uNHZOK

1. International and appointed election observers-this general election will make history for EC’s introduction of international observers and appointed local observers after years of adamant refusal. Much money will be used to take good care of the international guests-who are handpicked from select `friendly’ countries -may be Burma, Zimbabwe, Kazakhstan and the like, to sweeten these international `examiners’ of the Malaysian election administration. Then they had also appointed select local groups to be the local observers who are not told that they will be restricted by 20 conditions that had been introduced to the few election observers in the country. Loads of 5-star hotel `briefings’ and expensive cuisine will  perhaps help to wash down these harsh conditions onto these new observers; 10 local observers will be appointed per parliament constituencies-thus there will be 222X10 =2220 local observers; More EC staff will be needed to   handle this hordes of appointed observers, not to mention that the existing un-appointed observers will actually the ones putting more pressures on the EC!

2. Then there are a flurry of effort to `correct’ the constituencies boundaries, given that the EC can’t redraw the constituencies boundary due to BN’s lack of 2/3 majority in the Parliament and state assemblies. Switching the voters have the same effect as switching the boundaries-both help to manipulate the constituencies in favour of certain parties. More personnel is needed to do this in time for 13th GE;

3. Another area is speeding up the collection of election results-usually the EC official results lag behind the NGO/alternative media in getting election results; this need to be speeded up for a purpose best known to the EC; As a pattern the official results always announce victories by ruling parties first, and then only Opposition parties; The time lapse could allow some strongly suspected manipulations especially in closely fought constituencies; It also serve another purpose where the BN lose in certain states or in the Parliament-early results allow the BN to initiate bargaining with some Opposition parties to stay in power!!!

4. The dropping of the objection to candidates and subsequent appeal provisions at the nomination stage could potentially cause havoc at the nomination centers-thus the need to beef up security beyond the previous level; previously the police already spend 5 to 10 times of the EC in election operation; now it will be even higher to stop unhappy candidates dropped at the whims of the Returning Officer to make noise;

5.  There will be enforcement officers appointed at all constituencies X500+-their allowances and training will be enhanced -so do expect more strict and possibly selective enforcement from these folks at this election-coupled with more troublesome procedures to obtain ceramah permits;;

Other than these the following also need more spending to do what the EC is good at ie to advantage the ruling party to cling on to power:

6. Overseas voting;

7. Early voting;

8. later voters registration-regularly allowed at EC’s discretion; they may be assigned to strategic constituencies;

9. More training for Returning Officers and polling clerks to attune their mind to ignore polling irregularities;

10.More media public relation exercises to polish the EC’s image eg publish 2nd edition of the publication `The Truth’;

Regrettably the EC is not spending on the following areas where the EC could turn over a new leaf to become a respected election administrator:

1. start an investigation arm to look into the thousands of complaints which are regularly ignored and never reported in its election report;

2.strengthen its legal officer office so that EC can speak out against frauds and election transgressions rather than give the offenders the benefit of doubt whenever the offense is committed by the ruling politicians eg the EC chief said the PM was `legally well briefed’ to promise Rm5mil to Sibu voters if they vote BN candidate; Where was the legal officer?

3. Strengthen its Standard Operation Procedures so that eg they can draw a line on politicians’ encroachments eg physically encroach into the polling stations where they are disallowed to enter! There are also numerous other administration encroachments than publicised;

4. Strengthen its strategic planning section so that in time to come it can improve its standing eg bring its operation to international professional standards in many areas eg allowing longer nomination and campaign periods, following regional and international practices;

5. Strengthen its disclosures of information so that the public will get quick answers to their many queries that cast doubt on the EC’s integrity eg involuntary voters transfers;

6. strengthen its notoriously lacking voter education;

7. strengthen its quality control on the performance of the entire election personnel eg some Returning Officers attend the campaign functions of ruling party candidates-giving a bias image to the EC;

8. Strengthen its media presentation eg prompt and non-bias reply to criticisms from the public; the EC often present politically bias replies that spoil its impartial image; Eg EC defend campaigning by the PM ahead of the official campaign period;

9. Strengthen its division of labour among the 7 EC Commisioners-the current image is only the top 2 ever speak for the EC; what about the other 5?

10. Strengthen the electoral rolls compilation that cause regular embarrassment to the EC!

Uproar over RM700mil for polls expenses

Syed Jaymal Zahiid
| July 11, 2012
Pakatan Rakyat demands to know why it takes that much to run the 13th national elections.
KUALA LUMPUR: Pakatan Rakyat leaders today raised alarms over the Election Commission’s RM700 million budget to run the looming 13th general polls which is a drastic increase from its initial RM40 million allocation.

PKR senator Syed Husin Ali, speaking to reporters here, revealed Putrajaya’s request for an additional RM360 million for the EC’s operational expenses, and RM300 million for “security expenses” amid an ongoing national dispute over the credibility of the country’s elections system.
According to the former PKR deputy president, the amount was easily the biggest budget so far for an election.

“The government must explain why is there a drastic increase from RM40 million to RM360 million in allocation for the EC’s operational expenses.

“And this much money will be spent when there isn’t even any assurance that polls reform would be implemented,” Syed Husin said.

The senator pointed that the request for RM300 million for security expenses was also questionable citing past incidents where opposition ceramah events were attacked by alleged supporters of the ruling coalition.

“So what guarantees are there that taxpayers money would be spent accordingly?” asked the PKR senator.

Insincere

Growing support for polls reform movement Bersih and a national backlash derived from brutal crackdowns on its peaceful protests for free and fair elections have forced Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak to accede to calls for a cleansing of the election system.

A Parliamentary Select Committee was then set up to look into the demands followed by a 22 point recommendations tabled and approved in the Lower House at the March Parliament sitting.
But the opposition claimed the premier was insincere with his reform pledges after he failed to give any assurance that the recommendations would be implemented before he calls for national polls which must be held by mid 2013.

The PSC’s 22 recommendations, approved without debate, had also been criticised for purportedly failing to touch on specific issues pertaining to discrepancies in the current electoral roll.
Opposition leaders alleged this proved allegations that the ruling coalition was hell-bent on winning what would be its toughest elections yet through cheating although Najib denied the allegation.

Leaders from the ruling coalition also described Bersih and its opposition backers’ call for polls reform dishonest for rejecting the recommendations.

They said their preference for street protests over dialogue strengthened perceptions that the movement was only interested in overthrowing the present government via a coup.

Read more: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/cat…#ixzz20Ic3vYUB

Reprimand Najib, Bersih tells EC

Read more: http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2012/07/26/reprimand-najib-bersih-tells-ec/#ixzz21oIIfYbp

Election Commission out with The Truth

Posted on 23 July 2012 by Vijayakone

 11  1

The Malaysian Election Commission (EC) today met with all political leaders at the ‘Pertemuan Suruhanjaya Pilihan Raya Malaysia Bersama Pemimpin Parti Politik dan Taklimat Pilihan Raya Umum KE-13′ at the Marriott Hotel Putrajaya, IOI Resort Putrajaya.

The event provided detailed clarifications on various issues including the use of indelible ink, voter registration, elections process and conducted a demonstration on how the election process will be carried out.

In a publication “The Truth” distributed to the participants the EC provided answers to the many questions posed to the Election Commission.

The following is an extract of that publication.

Allegation 1:

The EC deliberately adjusts the boundaries of State and Parliamentary constituencies without the approval of the Parliament, with the intention of increasing the number of voters in a given constituency to enable Barisan Nasional to win in the 13th General Elections (GE-13)

This allegation is malicious and has no basis at all. The EC has never made any changes to the boundaries of State or Parliamentary constituencies as such changes can only be made when there is a review of the constituency boundaries as provided for, under Article 113 of the Federal Constitution. The EC had already issued a statement to the effect that the review of electoral boundaries will only be undertaken after GE-13. The EC will issue an official statement as to when the review will commence at the appropriate time.

What the EC actually did was to correct the mistake it made in placing the locality along with the voters in that locality in a wrong constituency. These mistakes had occurred in the past, possibly because the placement of localities in a constituency was done manually prior to 2004. Thus, under sub-regulation 25(3), Election Regulations (Registration of Electors) 2002, the Chief Registrar is vested with the power to correct such mistakes. The Chief Registrar had therefore placed the locality along with the electors in that locality in the constituency where it should be rightfully.

Only after the EGIS system (Electoral Geographical Information System) was adopted in 2004 did the EC realize that several localities and the electors placed in these localities were in the wrong constituencies. Using the powers vested under the Chief Registrar, the EC placed the localities in the constituencies where they should be rightfully. This exercise involved a total of 19,342 electors in several constituencies.

The localities along with the electors must be placed in the right constituencies as they exist in the field. It must be emphasized here that the placement of localities in the right constituencies does not involve changes to the boundaries of any constituency, be it State or Parliamentary. In fact, by placing the localities in the right constituencies, the electors will be able to vote in the right constituencies, both State and Parliamentary, and in the right polling districts based on their respective addresses.

After these corrections were made, the EC officially informed through notification letters that were addressed to leaders of all political parties in the affected constituencies. The EC assumed that the political parties, through their leaders at the polling districts and the state constituencies, were aware of the corrective actions taken by it and would therefore inform the affected electors in their respective constituencies.

However, based on the feedback that the EC received from the electors, many were not aware of the corrective actions taken to place the locality they are in the right constituency. As a result and in view of the approaching GE-13, the EC will write to all the affected electors throughout the country notifying them of the changes in their constituencies.

Thus, the EC would like to reiterate that the action taken to place the localities in the right constituencies based on the actual location of these localities on the ground, does not involve any changes to the boundaries of the constituencies, both state and federal. Those who need further clarification on this matter can get in touch with any of the EC Offices.

Allegation 2:

The Hon. Tan Sri Abdul Khalid bin Ibrahim was illegally transferred by the EC to another constituency

Allegations that The Hon. Tan Sri Abdul Khalid bin Ibrahim was transferred illegally by the EC to another constituency is untrue and baseless. The EC had given a detailed explanation to Members of the Parliament on 16 April 2012 with regards to this matter. However, this matter continues to be manipulated to mislead the public who may not understand the issue of corrections made to the placement of localities within a polling district, which in turn lies within a State constituency which in turn lies within a Parliamentary constituency.

In the case of The Hon. Tan Sri Abdul Khalid bin Ibrahim, the EC took the corrective action to place the locality in which Hon. Tan Sri’s name appears, along with others, in the right constituency in accordance with sub-regulation.

With the implementation of EGIS in 2004, the EC realized that the locality ‘Jalan 16/2′ was placed in the wrong constituency. In line with the corrective actions that were being taken in other constituencies throughout the country, the EC made the correction and placed the locality ‘Jalan 16/2′ Seksyen 16, Petaling Jaya under the Parliamentary constituency of P. 121 LembahPantai, Federal Territory based on the location of that locality on the ground. This action does not involve any changes to the boundaries of constituencies, both State and Federal. Those who need further clarification on this matter may visit the the EC Headquarters or the Selangor EC Office or the Federal Territory EC Office.

Allegation 3:
EC has failed to clean up the electoral roll. A total of 42,051 doubtful voters are still in the current EC electoral roll

As part of its continuous effort to clean-up the electoral roll, the EC sent the Principal Electoral Roll (PER) with12.5 million registered electors to the National Registration Department (NRD) on July 2011 for a comprehensive review for the purpose of confirmation and verification.

In September 2011, the NRD informed the EC that of the total of 12.5 million electors, there were 42,051 names of electors on whom they do not have clear and reliable information. This means that the names of the 42,051 electors are in the records of the NRD. However, these electors cannot be contacted because of the absence of address though the NRD would like them to come and update their latest status. At the same time, they have not been to any of the NRD offices to update their status. As a result, the EC decided to categorize the 42,051 electors as doubtful due to the absence of the latest information on their status.

Following this, to ensure that the rights of the registered electors are guaranteed under the Constitution, the EC took the right step in not deleting their names from the electoral roll without confirmation from the rightful department, the NRD. Instead, the EC took the initiative to display all of the 42,051 names for a period of 3 months to provide an opportunity for the public, especially electors to come forward to update their information at the NRD and the EC. This would enable the NRD and the EC to update the status of the elector and remove him or her from the list of doubtful electors.

During the same period, the EC also distributed the names of these 42,051 electors to the headquarters of all major political parties, as well as political leaders. The EC hoped that they will get confirmation and feedback on their address or their latest status. Unfortunately, the response received by the EC from political parties and the public during the three months was disappointing. On 28 March 2012, the NRD informed the EC that based on detailed ongoing reviews the number of electors with dubious status was reduced to 40,803 people. This is due to the fact that there had been individuals who went to the NRD to update the information on their identity cards, while others, as heirs, came forward with evidence to the NRD on the death of family members or their relatives.

The law does not allow any name in the electoral roll to be deleted without confirmation of their status from the NRD. Thus, the names of 40,803 electors of dubious status should continue to remain in the electoral rolls, in order to ensure that their rights are protected under the Constitution. The EC would only delete their names from the electoral roll after official confirmation had been received from the authority, that is the NRD, on whether the individual has died or lost his or her citizenship status, or is disqualified for other reasons as provided for under the Federal Constitution. Therefore, as long as the final confirmation has not been obtained from the NRD, the names of all the 40,803 electors must be maintained in the Principal Electoral Roll.

The misery of the upper Bengoh folks who face flooding by the Bengoh dam has not gone unheeded: a civil society group LightupBorneo -with the help and donations from West Malaysians, managed to help the folks there to install 2 mini hydros for their new village at Kg Nyegol, above the dam water, but still within their ancestral lands. Enjoy the short video documentation(13min). Camera: Joachim Leong, Samel Wong.

Original Bidayuh music recorded on the spot. See video here.

2 urban kids joined 2 Bengoh kids after they crossed the rural-urban divide-can you tell which 2 are from the town?

Some of the 20 conditions imposed on accredited election observers by the EC/SPR are:

1. can’t take picture of frauds without permission by KTM/presiding officer;

2. can’t speak to anyone in the polling center;

3. can’t leave the polling center observer is assigned to;

4. can’t observe the counting process;

5.can’t enter the polling station-can only observe through the window;

6.can’t get accreditation cards except from Putrajaya;

7.can’t speak to media about frauds/irregularities observed;

8.can’t enter the nomination deliberation room/hall;

9.can’t observe anything that the EC /SPR say is outside its `power’ eg criminal issues will be considered police matters;media issue considered issue of Minister of Information; corruption matters of MACC;

10. can’t refer to international standards for observation reports eg disallowing observers is no problem under Malaysian laws;

There are another 10 more restrictions.