PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang today announced that his party will not recognise the results of last Sunday's general election.

He said the party has collected enough evidence to prove that the elections was marred by the interference of phantom voters, corruption, breach of election laws and irregularities on the part of the Election Commission (EC) and its officials.

He said the decision was made following a five-hour meeting among PAS central committee members at its headquarters in Taman Melewar in Gombak, Selangor this afternoon.

"Fundamental principles of democracy were violated in the election and this has forced us to unanimously reject the results of the polls conducted on March 21," said Abdul Hadi at a press conference held after the meeting.

"We condemn the EC as it had allowed itself to be abused by the prime minister, Barisan Nasional (BN) and its components."

Asked if the rejection included the seats that it had won, Abdul Hadi said: "In the seats that we had won ... we should have won them with a bigger majority."

"You cannot expect me to have faith in an election which was conducted in such a way that even ballot papers were found abandoned along the roadside," said Hadi showing the media several postal ballot papers for the Merbok parliamentary seat which the party had found.

Apart from seeking the removal of EC chairperson Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman and secretary Wan Ahmad Wan Omar, he said the party is also pressing for a royal commission of inquiry to "expose the conspiracy between the EC and the ruling coalition (BN)".

PAS routed by BN

Last Sunday, PAS was routed by the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, losing Terengganu and coming close to being defeated in neighbouring Kelantan as well.

The party's rejection of the poll results came in the wake of announcement by the EC today that it, too, would welcome a royal commission to probe into complaints of poll irregularities.

Abdul Hadi said among the signs of election discrepancies was the highly irregular percentage of voter turnout especially in Terengganu, where some constituencies registered above 90%.

As to the allegation of phantom voters, he said party election workers have discovered names of voters who were found to have voted in several polling stations.

"We found that there were many voters whose name mysteriously vanished from the electoral roll or moved to other constituencies despite having voted at the same place for years.

"We also discovered that as many as 20 voters registered to one address while some were registered on false addresses," he said.

The PAS leader also said that the EC had failed to secure voters their confidentiality. He was referring to bird's eye angle photos of voters casting their votes that appeared in an English daily, The Sun , on March 22.

He said the EC had also failed miserably when it mistakenly printed the wrong party symbol on ballot papers for the Sungai Lembing state seat resulting the election there being re-scheduled for the coming Sunday.

On polling day, voters at Pahang's Sungai Lembing found that their ballot papers wrongfully depicted the Keadilan logo for PAS candidate Idris Ahmad.

"Such inefficiency cannot be accepted and that is why the party has decided to boycott the re-scheduled election in Sungai Lembing," he said.

'There has been foul play'

He also questioned the EC's action to use a different electoral roll on polling day rather than the one issued to the party on nomination day, March 13.

"For example, in Selangor, the electoral roll given was dated March 5 but on polling day, they referred to one dated March 15. After checking the two, we found that the names listed were vastly different."

Responding to media queries, Abdul Hadi said the party was collecting more evidence from its party workers and would be filing election petitions in court soon to challenge the election results.

He also said that the introduction of phantom voters were among the main reasons for the party's loss of Terengganu which he said is now led by a kerajaan hantu (phantom government), referring to the BN.

Dismissing that PAS' defeat was due to the party's struggle for the Islamic state, he said: "Well maybe it (Islamic state) is not appealing to the voters in states like Selangor but we cannot accept that is the reason for us to fare so badly in Kelantan and Terengganu where the support we have gained was because of our commitment to form an Islamic state."

He said the people of Terengganu were solidly behind PAS and this had been proven when Umno leaders and the police could not control dissatisfied voters on Monday night.

"The police called me to help them calm those who had gathered around Kuala Terengganu to protest the results.

"At first the police allowed us to address the people at the state stadium but it was revoked by the state secretary ... so we held a rally at Rusila where thousands came. Does this show that the people rejects us? Definitely not," said Abdul Hadi.

He also said the poll results will not affect the party's line-up and its Islamic state policy.

"The party's main policy has never changed and our loss will not vary anything. This is because we have not failed but we have been cheated ... there has been foul play," he said.