The Pengkalan Pasir by-election on Dec 6 was marred with widespread election irregularities - and the independent election watchdog, Malaysians for Free and Fair Elections (Mafrel), said it has proof to that effect.

Mafrel chairperson Abd Malek Hussin alleged that both Barisan Nasional (BN) and PAS were guilty of more than 40 irregularities and offences committed on polling day at all nine polling centres and also throughout the 10-day election campaign.

Among the serious offences allegedly committed are impersonation of voters, bribery involving cash and kind and breach of campaign expenditure which is capped at RM100,000 for a state constituency by the Election Commission (EC).

"All these are election offences stated in the Election Offences Act 1954 ," he told malaysiakini .

Abd Malek said alleged impersonation of voters took place in four polling stations where Mafrel observers recorded incidents of deceased voters listed in the electoral roll casting their ballots on polling day.

"We even had one incident where one person was caught voting twice at the same polling station! Of course there were complaints by voters who were denied from voting as the records showed that they have cast their ballots."

As for the breach of campaign expenditure, he said this was based on the volume of campaign posters and banners displayed by the parties concerned.

Report on Dec 31

"I believe that based on the cost of putting up all those posters, banners and billboards alone far exceeded the RM100,000 allowed," he said.

He declined to provide details of the offences, saying that Mafrel will release a detailed report which will include photo evidences by Dec 31.

The by-election saw a victory for BN's Hanafi Mamat who defeated PAS candidate Hanifa Mat Yatim with a majority of 134 votes. Independent candidate Ibrahim Ali only managed to garner 415 votes.

The by-election was called following the death of PAS incumbent Wan Abdul Aziz Wan Jaafar on Oct 31. He had defeated Hanafi during the 2004 general election by a mere 56 votes.

The win means that PAS which has been ruling Kelantan since 1990, has only 23 seats in the state assembly - only one more than BN who now has 22 seats.

PAS has since announced its intention to challenge the results via an election petition claiming that irregularities in the voting process had caused its defeat.

Further on Mafrel's observation, Abd Malek said that apart from the violation of various election laws, the abuse of government machinery during the Pengkalan Pasir by-election was another serious breach of electoral ethics.

Among the alleged culprits were Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi who is also BN chairperson.

"We followed two official BN functions attended by Abdullah. It was clear that government facilities and resources were misused and abused. We have photos to prove this."

Public money used

The Mafrel chief added that BN was not alone in this, alleging that he also has evidence to show how the PAS Kelantan government has misused government machinery at one official function during the campaign..

He was disappointed that misusing government resources at electoral campaigns is not considered an election offence under Malaysia's election laws.

"Such abuse is very serious. It is against international norm and standard. Politicians should not be allowed to use public money to further the interest of their political party. This is like stealing from the people."

He also called for a review of the election laws to improve the situation.

"If we want to allow political parties to have access to government machinery, it must be regulated because it concerns public fund. It should also be done in a fair manner which means all parties have access to such facilities and resources as what is practiced in Australia, United States and Indonesia."

On the allegations of phantom voters , Abdul Malek blamed the electoral rolls which he said open doors of abuse against the election laws.

"Obviously there is a need to review how the electoral rolls are handled. We are looking at the registration process where voters are allowed to register using incomplete home address."

He said that the commission also has to take a more pro-active role in cleaning the electoral rolls from deceased voters instead of relying on the deceased's next-of-kin to take the necessary step.

Abolish postal balloting

Abd Malek also said that the recent by-election affirmed the need to review postal voting process in Malaysia referring to the 150 postal votes obtained by BN which helped its candidate clinched victory.

"Postal votes do determine the results of an election as shown in Pengkalan Pasir. PAS claimed that it won ground votes but due to the postal votes, they lost. And more importantly, the process of postal voting here totally ignores the two fundamental aspect of voting: the secrecy of the voter and transparency," he said.

He said the commission should allow the election agents to observe postal balloting to allay allegations of harassment and ballot tampering.

"In Pengkalan Pasir, 43 ballots out of the total 216 were spoilt. That is almost 20 percent! This is an alarming figure. What was the cause? Voters' ignorance of the process? Or tampering? And because the process is not transparent, we would never know."

He said one option would be to abolish postal balloting altogether as what Iran had done.

"There, the security personnel are required to queue like any normal citizen to cast their votes. There is no more postal voting," he added.