Zahid: Inmates have no right to vote
Prison inmates do not have the right to vote in an election, Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said.
Prison inmates do not have the right to vote in an election, Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said.
He said this following PKR’s request that PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim, who is serving a five year jail sentence for sodomy, be allowed to vote for the Permatang Pauh by-election.
His wife and PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail is contesting in the by-election, triggered by Anwar's jailing.
"Maybe the Election Commission will look at the provisions which could allow inmates to vote [...] but as far as I know, inmates have no right to vote.
"If there are provisions to allow them to, I am sure the EC will provide a ballot paper to the Sungai Buloh prison for the individual to vote," Ahmad Zahid was quoted as saying by Bernama .
Contacted by Malaysiakini , EC chairperson Abdul Aziz Yusof said the federal constitution disqualifies inmates from voting.
Section 3(a) of Article 119 of the federal constitution states that a person is disqualified from being an elector in any election if he is serving a sentence of imprisonment.
One is also disqualified from voting if one has been sentenced to death or imprisonment for a term exceeding twelve months.
However, Zahid had in 2013 proposed a mechanism to allow inmates to vote.
"We welcome Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi's plan to work out a mechanism to allow prisoners to vote.
"Don't tell me it takes a year to work out such move," Anwar’s daughter and Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah said earlier today, in urging the government to allow her father to vote.
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