Australia today rebuffed a call from Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to monitor the parliamentary elections at which his coalition party will try to unseat the ruling party of caretaker Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

“We can’t be a sort of court of disputed returns, or election authority, election commission, for another country,” Foreign Minister Bob Carr said. “There’s no way we could put ourselves in a

position where we are shaping election-day practices, voting practices, in any other country.”

He was responding to Anwar’s call to send monitors and to “remain consistent with Australian foreign policy position in support of freedom and democracy.”

Malaysians go to the polls on May 5 in the closest contest in the South-East Asian nation’s 56-year history.

- dpa