The authorities must immediately investigate former Sabah Election Commission (EC) director Wan Ahmad Wan Yusof for allegedly instructing the state EC to provide unqualified immigrants with identity card numbers in the 1990s.

NONE Sarawak PKR chairperson Baru Bian ( left ) said Wan Ahmad’s role in this "scandalous treachery" in altering Sabah’s electoral demography, if indeed true, only served to justify the rakyat’s distrust of the EC.

"The rakyat’s distrust of the EC has been justified by revelations on Project IC.

"Bersih’s demands now take on an even more urgent note and the EC must implement the measures demanded before GE13," Baru Bian said in a statement.

He was referring to revelations made by a former Sabah National Registration Department (NRD) officer Mohd Nasir Sugip last week on the existence of the ' Ops Durian Buruk ' scheme, in the ongoing royal commission of inquiry (RCI) into illegal immigrants in Sabah.

During the inquiry, Mohd Nasir had claimed he was told by then state NRD director Ramli Kamarudin to implement the scheme after Wan Ahmad had supposedly handed over a list of 16,000 names to be made into “bumiputera Islam” voters.

‘Thousands still waiting for ICs, birth certificate’

Baru Bian said, worse still, while illegal Muslim immigrants were being handed ICs and citizenship, thousands of those born and raised in East Malaysia remain stateless despite applying for ICs and birth certificates.

“There are copies of many application forms in my office which were rejected or given no response by the authorities. There are some who were given temporary ICs with expiry dates on them, which I cannot fathom."

The lawyer cited a case of a Sarawakian working in West Malaysia who cannot return home as his temporary IC has expired and another of a schoolmate, who was unable to further his studies without an IC.

NONE He further described former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s move in bringing first prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman into the fray, by claiming last week that the latter had awarded citizenship to one million unqualified people in peninsula Malaysia, as “despicable”.

Meanwhile, the recent revelations made during the ongoing RCI has prompted calls by many quarters for the EC to clean up the Sabah electoral role.

DAP national chairperson Karpal Singh, however, dismissed the need for the general election to be postponed to facilitate this.

“The election can’t be postponed and must be held at the end of the five years’ term. It is required under the law,” the lawyer told a press conference in Kuala Lumpur today.

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