It was a bad time to catch the busy Dr Syed Azman Syed Ahmad Nawawi for an interview. The Election Commission had earlier in the day announced it was erasing the indelible ink plan. Dr Azman is a member of the steering committee for Bersih (the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections) and the eleventh hour turnaround greatly troubled him.

He reacted to the breaking news forcefully: "All along we’ve said that the EC and EC chairman [Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman] are basically ‘kuda tunggangan’ (being manipulated by) Umno, just a tool of the Barisan Nasional. And this election, I believe really is the dirtiest – a sham election, a sham democracy that we have. I mean it’s so shameful that this is happening."