Nomination day for national campus elections last Saturday was marred by abuse of electoral processes, according to several complaints lodged with Suhakam by students.

In addition, Malay-language daily Berita Mingguan reported aggression at the Universiti Malaya campus in Kuala Lumpur, during which 'shoes and other objects' were allegedly thrown by one group of students at a rival group.

Prof Hamdan Adnan, chairperson of the Suhakam complaints and investigations working committee, said in a statement today that the national rights body would investigate the claims.

He said Suhakam was seeking the permission of the Higher Education Ministry and university authorities to monitor polling on Wednesday.

Among the grievances forwarded to the commission were that campus authorities had intervened in the nomination process; that there were threats and other coercive tactics to ensure that candidates favoured by the Student Affairs Departments would be chosen; and suspicion that online polling was not transparent or fair.

Pro-government students are reported to have won uncontested in a number of posts available for the students' representative councils at Universiti Utara Malaysia and the Science and Technology College.

Polls boycott

At Universiti Malaya, traditionally a bastion of opposition politics and activism, two groups of students faced off as tensions ran high, according to a Berita Mingguan report over the weekend.

A group of students marching in support of a candidate was reportedly preventing from entering a hostel by another group. They then began pushing one another and throwing 'shoes and other objects' at each other.

This time around, 22 of the 39 seats went uncontested to pro-government students when nominations closed.

This is the first time in eight years that 'opposition' students there have lost to the pro-government camp though observers say this was mainly due to the elections being boycotted by a group dubbed 'Aspirations of Students of Malaysia'.

In a statement issued on Saturday, the groups said that its calls for 'transparency and justice' in the university's election process have gone unheeded.

Certain actions, such as the alleged refusal by certain UM authorities to endorse the group's nominees, had deprived them of their democratic and human rights, their statement added.