Kelantan PAS does not deny the allegation by Umno that about 20,000 voters from Southern Thailand had cast their ballots in the state during the past two general elections.

These voters were said to possess two identity cards one Thai and the other Malaysian.

"The statement could possibly be true. I cannot deny it because what he (the Umno leader who raised the issue) said was based on his past experience over the matter," said Kelantan PAS liaison secretary Wan Ismail Wan Jusoh when met.

Wan Ismail was reacting to Kelantan Umno liaison chief Mustapa Mohamed's statement last week that Umno had discovered that almost 20,000 people from Thailand with dual citizenship voted in the state.

The Umno leader said an investigation conducted by the party revealed that these people have no family, houses or occupations in Kelantan.

He said the state Umno is in the process of compiling the voters names and will submit it to the Election Commission (EC) soon.

Umno's work

Meanwhile, Wan Ismail claims that the coming of Thai voters was actually Umno's work.

"It was Umno that helped these people obtain Malaysian identity cards. PAS had raised the issue long ago.

"But at that time Umno leaders were confident these people would support them and the matter was ignored," claimed the state assembly representative for Melor.

The PAS leader also claimed that the existence of 'phantom' voters which Umno is now making noise about is also the result of the latter's practices.

These included, he said, shifting voters from one area to another if it was felt that their presence could benefit Umno.

He alleged that in 1994, the state Umno formed an operation dubbed 'Operasi Gonggong' where many Umno people from Pengkalan Chepa were shifted to the Peringat division.

He said this happened following an agreement between Pengkalan Chepa division head Ariffin Hamid with Peringat division head and state Umno deputy chief Annuar Musa.

The PAS leader claimed that Ariffin agreed that Umno supporters in his area be moved after he discovered that he had no chance of winning in the Pengkalan area.

Wan Ismail added that when Umno suffered a major defeat in the 1999 general election then only the issue of phantom voters was raised.

"It is similar to the voters from Thailand (issue). Only when Umno found that these people changed their stand, they started becoming noisy and began accusing the opposition," he said.

Asked whether PAS would lodge any protest against Mustapa's plan to hand over the list of names to EC for action, Wan Ismail replied: "Why should PAS protest? It is up to EC to consider the matter.

"We only hope that what the EC would not be biased against certain political parties. That is all."

YAAKUB DASAN is malaysiakini correspondent in Kelantan.