SHAH ALAM, 2 Apr: The Selangor Election Commission (EC) admits that there are violations of law by Umno-BN agents in the Malaysian electoral roll for registering voters without their consent.
However, Klang Member of Parliament, Charles Santiago added, the Selangor EC said that nothing can be done even though they are aware that there were violations.
Charles claimed that the offense was admitted by the Selangor EC Director, Dzulkifli Abdul Rahman in a meeting with him for 45 minutes at the Selangor EC office today.
Charles said that an assistant registrar of Umno, Hishammusin Kassim registered many dubious voters when entering names of Malaysian citizens living abroad who have never registered as voters.
“I asked Dzulkifli how many have been registered by the assistant registrar (Hishammudin) that has been broken down, and he said there were ‘a lot’ and hundreds.
“After that I asked again how many were registered by Hishammuddin, and he said ‘a lot’. But he know a mistake was done and there violations of the law,” he said.
However, according to Charles, Dzulkifli said that the EC cannot remove the names from the electoral roll because Section 9(a) of the Election Act 1958 prohibits names from the electoral rolls to be removed after it is published.
“They are hiding behind Section 9(a),” said Charles who claimed that they admits that the law was broken but did not take any action.
Previously, Charles revealed the case of the registration of Dinesh Siva Kumar, 32, who is living in the United Kingdom for more than 10 years and who has never been registered as a voter or delegated someone for this purpose.
Charles revealed this in a press conference after the meeting at the Selangor EC office at the PKNS Complex here together with Dinesh’s father, K Siva Kumar, 64 and his lawyer, Mishant Thiruchelvam.
However, Dzulkifli did not attend the press conference.
“To be a voter, an individual is required to sign the EC registration form and to have a copy of their identification card.
“We asked the Selangor EC to show this evidence but the Selangor EC stated that they did not have the information and asked to refer to the Putrajaya EC,” said Charles.
Charles said that he will bring the matter to the EC in Putrajaya in the closest possible time with the names of those who were registered without consent.
He said he also has a list of five other Malaysian registered as voters without consent.
“It is clear that impurities have occurred in the voter registration list and the EC knows of this matter.
“But the EC cannot clean up the names because the claim that when a name is gazetted, it cannot be removed from the list.
“We must be prepared to face the dirtiest general elections in history,” he said.
Charles added that he has demanded for the Selangor EC to make a police report immediately following this case, but he was disappointed when the Selangor EC stated that they could not do so.