The Election Commission’s (EC) reluctance to reveal the statistics of new voters registered by political parties raises suspicions on the legitimacy of the electoral roll, said MP Tony Pua.

NONE Pua hit out at the EC and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz (right) for trying to deceive the public by stating, in a written parliamentary reply, that “the commission does not record the number of voters registered by political parties since 2008".

"This raises suspicions of hanky-panky in the voters database," the PJ Utara MP told a press conference at the Parliament lobby today.

Pua said news reports have quoted EC chief Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof as saying that assistant registrars appointed by political parties are vigorously registering eligible voters and that the number stood at 115,989 as of March 2011.

He distributed copies of the news reports, and another report in 2010 that stated that DAP was at the time leading Umno in the “race” to register new voters.

This report quotes EC panel committee on voter registration and preparation chairperson Zainal Abidin Mat Said quoted as saying that DAP had registered 9,106 voters in July that year, compared with Umno’s 7,230 registrations.

NONE “So, the breakdown has been collected and kept by the EC, contrary to the minister’s (parliamentary) answer,” Pua said.

“Why doesn’t the government want to reveal it? The reason I am asking is because there are allegations of voters being planted, especially foreigners registered as voters,” he said.

The MP said he received Nazri's reply only last week, although he had asked the question during the April sitting of the Dewan Rakyat.

“I am shocked by this answer, which is a huge lie by the minister,” Pua said.

He had asked for a detailed breakdown of voters registered since 2008 and categorised according to states by the political parties involved in their registration.

Besides stating that the EC had no statistics of the breakdown of voters registered by political parties, Nazri in his response also said the commission did not record the political parties the assistant registrars belonged to in its database.