PAS may seek court order to defer polls

PAS may seek a court order to postpone the Bagan Pinang polls in view of alleged irregularities in the postal voting process.

This will be among the matters discussed with the Election Commission during a meeting with a Pakatan Rakyat delegation at its headquarters in Putrajaya this afternoon.

The Pakatan delegation will be led by PAS national elections director Abdul Halim Rahman.

PAS vice-president Salahuddin Ayub (left) said that during the meeting, a list containing "hundreds" of names will be submitted as evidence.

The list contains names of voters who are allegedly able to vote twice - as postal and ordinary voter - or are able to vote in more than one constituency.

"If the EC is unable to resolve the problem, we will take court action," said Salahuddin, who is also the PAS elections director for the Oct 11 Bagan Pinang by-election.

There are 4,600 postal voters - who make up more than a third of the electorate in the constituency - who will begin casting their ballots for two days starting tomorrow.

PAS has frequently complained that they have no access to this crop of voters unlike Barisan Nasional who can do so through various government agencies.

Other complaints include lack of transparency in the postal voting process and claims that postal ballots are easily manipulated in favour of BN.

An unresolved ‘old issue'

Salahuddin said if needed, the PAS legal team will file for an injunction either tomorrow or Friday in order to postpone the polls to facilitate a ‘cleaning up' of the voter list.

Asked for a definite figure of questionable voters, Salahuddin said it would be announced by the delegation to EC headquarters later this evening.

Salahuddin said this was not a new issue and it has been raised many times with the EC over the past decade, most prominently during the meetings headed by Coalition for Free and Fair Elections (Bersih).

"But until now, EC has failed to take any action, particularly on the issue of ‘overlapping' voter names," he said.

Meanwhile, another PAS vice-president Mahfuz Omar said there were proof of irregularities in the postal voting process, based on comments made by Ex-Servicemen Association of Malaysia (PBTM) president Muhammad Abd Ghani.

Referring to a Bernama report today, Mahfuz (right) said Muhammad had disappointment with some ex-servicemen who failed to change their status from postal voters to ordinary voters.

"This means there are former soldiers who are still postal voters. The issue now is, will they be allowed to vote, or someone would vote for them?" asked Mahfuz.