In two days, more than 4,000 soldiers will mark their ballots in the Bagan Pinang by-election even though the Election Commission (EC) has yet to respond to ‘shortcomings’ in the process.

bagan pinang by election 061009 sallehudin speech PAS secretary-general Salahuddin Ayub said he contacted EC officials and found out that the number of voting centres for postal voters has been reduced from nine previously, to just one.

And to compound matters, only one scrutineer from PAS will be allowed to monitor the process.

“We are disputing this. The sole polling agent will be overwhelmed as more than 4,000 voters will have to be scrutinised,” said Salahuddin.

He said that, in the last general election, each polling agent was only tasked with scrutinising about 300 voters.

He said the issue had been raised with the EC headquarters at a previous meeting, but that no action appears to have been taken to resolve it in Bagan Pinang, a state seat in Negri Sembilan.

“There appears to be a communications breakdown between the EC headquarters and the coordinators at the army camps,” he said.

Salahuddin noted that a “comfortable” five days were allocated for postal votes the last time around, but that this has been reduced to two for the by-election.

malaysia army 160806 battalion The one-day gap between the end of the postal voting period and the by-election proper on Sunday raises more questions, he said.

“We are not accusing (anyone of) anything, but we have the right to be suspicious,” he said.

He said PAS is also gathering evidence on postal voters in the uniformed corps who have allegedly voted in their civilian capacity elsewhere.

‘Covert anti-cheating system’

Salahuddin further claimed that several military officers have complained that they have yet to received their ballot papers. However, they are certain that someone will “vote on their behalf”.

He warned that a system has been put in place by PAS to detect vote manipulation and pledged that the evidence would be produced in court.

bagan pinang by election 061009 pkr billboard 01 “This is part of our strategy. We can’t reveal (details) yet,” he said.

PAS, he said, will forward the complaints to the EC headquarters tomorrow at a meeting.

Postal voters make up about a third of the electorate in Bagan Pinang and are widely seen as giving an edge to Barisan Nasional candidate Isa Samad.

In the last contest, a majority of the postal voters backed BN, whose candidate won by a margin of about 2,000 votes.

The opposition has longed claimed that the postal voting process lacks transparency and can easily be manipulated in favour of BN.