The Election Commission's claim that the sudden increase in postal voters in the Pangkor seat and elsewhere as due to "awakening of political awareness in the wives of soldiers" has been rubbished by PKR secretary-general Saifuddin Nasution.

Simpang Pulai assemblyperson Chan Ming Kai recently brought up the matter of the sudden 6,000 increase in the number of postal voters in the Pangkor state seat.

In answer to Chan's queries, EC deputy chairperson Wan Ahmad Wan Omar said the increase was due to a spike in the political consciousness of military spouses.

pkr congress pc 271110 saifuddin nasution "We dispute the EC's claim that such a sudden increase in postal voters is the result of the awakening of political awareness in the wives of military personnel," Saifuddin ( left ) told a press conference in the lobby of Parliament today.

To prove his point, he raised a case of 449 wives of soldiers in the state seat of Kok Lanas in Kelantan, who were similarly "transformed" into postal voters despite being ordinary voters before - and without their knowledge too.

Saifuddin related how the postal voters were then reverted to ordinary voters after a public hearing by the registrar of voters revealed the conversions to be suspect.

He called the large increase in postal voters in Pangkor "suspicious", since postal voters tended to lean toward the BN.

Certain quarters going about it 'systematically'

The sudden appearance of the 449 in Kok Lanas, where the PAS majority was about 500, alluded to the theory that the "appearance of postal voters" in electoral lists were attempts to nullify the opposition majority.

"The sudden increase in postal voters is not caused by political consciousness but it seems to be caused by certain quarters going about this systematically. Who are they? Does the commission have a mechanism to track them? The EC will have to answer," Saifuddin said.

He warned that there would be adverse effects on the state of the Malaysian democracy if the EC left such questions unanswered.

"If this issue is not exposed, it will have a big effect on the national elections. If the complaints are not addressed by the EC, it will indicate weaknesses in the commission and we can no longer expect to have truly clean and fair elections," the PKR leader added.

VIDEO | 5.59 mins

EC, tell ROS to approve Pakatan's application