Ballot boxes for early voters and postal voting could have been compromised while they were kept by the police, along with indelible ink and other ballot papers for use on polling day, PKR vice-president Fuziah Salleh said today.

She said Election Commission chief Abdul Aziz Yusof had promised that representatives of the candidates could keep watch on the ballot boxes for early voting and they could even sleep in the police cells in which these were kept.

NONE "However, this was not allowed by the police, who ushered our party workers away," said Fuziah ( left ).

"The ballot boxes for early voting and postal voters were kept in the same cells, along with the ballot papers and the indelible ink. I know as I was there to observe these being kept there.

"However, our party volunteers were not allowed to look after the security of the ballot boxes around-the-clock.

"A day before polling day on May 4, the EC officers came in the evening to retrieve the indelible ink and the ballot papers. I got a tip-off and went straight to the Kuantan district police station where the ballot boxes were kept.

"However, the police refused to allowed me to observe the process," she said.

The police, Fuziah claimed, also showed their rifles at her in a threatening manner, despite she being a candidate and the incumbent Kuantan MP.

NONE She suspects there is a possibility that the ballot boxes could have been changed during this period.

In supporting her allegation, Fuziah said in 2008, early voting and postal ballot papers accounted for 20 percent of the opposition votes but this year, it was merely 10 per cent nationwide.

This, Fuziah said, may have taken place nationwide and that she knew about this window to possible violations after receiving a tip-off that EC officers would come to take the indelible ink and the ballot papers.

“This leaves time for them to switch the ballot boxes,” she said.

The early voting took place on April 30 and from then on the ballot boxes are kept in a cell in nearby police stations.

EC and police hold the keys

Fuziah said unlike in the past, where political parties would provide their own locks and keys to the sealed ballot boxes, this practice was stopped for GE13.

Only the EC held the key to the ballot box, and police held the other set to open the cell, the Kuantan MP said. The two parties would therefore have to conspire to for the boxes to be switched.

NONE Another party vice-president, Tian Chua, also questioned why the EC did not allow party workers to observe and monitor the ballot boxes, when this has been agreed upon by the EC when its chairperson Abdul Aziz Yusof briefed parliamentarians before the election.

“We had been told that party workers could sleep in the cells if they wanted, in order to safeguard the ballot boxes, but the police did not allow this,” he said.

Tian Chua also said the PKR was not confident of getting recordings from the closed circuit television cameras in the police station cells should it make such a request.

“I am told the CCTV cameras of most of the police stations may not be working properly. If the matter is brought to court for election petitions there could be a problem. Possible ballot box switching and non-operating CCTV cameras lend to fraud in the votes,” he said.

26 seats have five percent differentials

Fuziah added that her large vote majority (of 4,515 votes) would not have made any switch in ballot boxes for her constituency overturn  the result.

However, she noted, that there were 26 parliamentary seats with a five percent difference between the winner and loser in the total votes cast and these results could have been affected by fraud involving a switch of ballot boxes.

This, she said brought into question what could have taken place in the other constituencies that Pakatan had been confident about winning, especially in some places where the voter turnout have been very high, even more than 91 percent, which is extremely large.

Pakatan Rakyat obtained 89 parliamentary seats after getting 50.87 percent of the popular votes nationwide in Sunday's election, while BN won 133 seats on 47.38 percent of the popular votes.