Drop Sabah NGO as observer, Bersih urges EC

Sabah Bersih wants the Election Commission to drop a state NGO as an election observer during the coming general election as it was found campaigning for BN recently.

"Election observers should not campaign for any political party. They should be independent.

"Political campaigning should be left to the parties and not election observers," said Sabah Bersih spokesperson Andrew Ambrose (left) .

"Why did Federation of Chinese Associations of Sabah (FCAS) publicly run a political campaign and shoot EC in the foot at the same time?"

FCAS acting president TC Goh called upon the Chinese community to continue supporting the BN state government under the leadership of Chief Minister Musa Aman.

According to the frontpage report in The New Sabah Times on Thursday, Goh in his Chinese New Year message praised the chief minister for the great job he had done.

"It is only appropriate that on behalf of the Chinese community in Sabah I thank the BN government, under the leadership of Musa, for continuously supporting the Chinese community, especially in the aspects of education, culture, sports and religious development," he was quoted as saying.

"Hence, I am urging the people to continue supporting the chief minister and state government in the coming general election."

On Wednesday, the EC officially appointed FCAS, Sabah branch of the Malaysian History Association and Sabah Youth Council as three domestic observers for the 13th general election in Sabah and Labuan.

Goh personally received the appointment letter from EC chairperson Abdul Aziz Yusof.

In his statement yesterday, Ambrose said FCAS should have functioned as an independent body to assess the conduct of an election process on the basis of national legislation and international standards.

Sabah Bersih wants members of the public to respond to the FCAS statement and "to teach the organisation what it means to be independent and unbiased".

"We ask the people to do the honourable thing and reject the appointment of FCAS before it makes another political campaign," added Ambrose.