DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang today called on the Election Commission (EC) to suspend military and police postal ballot voting if political parties continue to be banned from monitoring the postal votes.

"It should be banned unless the EC and all contesting political parties are convinced and satisfied of adequate safeguards to ensure a fair voting process," he said in a statement.

EC officials present

Lim was responding to a malaysiakini report on Friday quoting a parliamentary reply from the Prime Minister's Department as stating political parties will not be allowed to monitor postal votes coming from the numerous military and police bases in the next general election.

The department said the armed forced rejected the proposal on the grounds that EC officials are present to ensure that the voting process adhered to the rules and regulations.

However the department's statement contradicted that of the EC head Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman in an exclusive interview with malaysiakini earlier.

Abdul Rashid said in the interview that he had requested that political parties be allowed to monitor the process and Defence Minister Najib Tun Razak was deliberating the matter.

Lim questioned whether the department's reply is the "last and final position".

"If the government has decided to reject the EC's proposal, then it will become a test case of the EC's authority, independence, legitimacy and integrity as to whether it is prepared to exercise its constitutional mandate and powers to conduct free, fair and clean elections by suspending the postal voting," he said.

Monday session

"Parliament and the nation should be told on Monday whether the last word by the 'higher authority' on the proposal that representatives of political parties and candidates be allowed to monitor postal votes for the next general election has been given, and if so, by which 'higher authority' and when."

The ministerial winding-up of the 2004 budget debates by parliamentarians over the last two weeks are scheduled from tomorrow to Wednesday.

The Prime Minister's Department is the first ministry to begin the winding-up.

The former parliamentary opposition leader also described the department's reasoning that the presence of the EC officials is adequate as "completely unacceptable".

"As going by the same logic, there would be no need for representatives of political parties and candidates to monitor the voting process on polling day in the polling stations throughout the country, as everything should be left in the hands of the EC," he said.

According to the EC, there were about 151,000 police postal votes and 83,000 army postal votes in the last general election.