The battle of the ballots for the coveted National Union of Bank Employees (NUBE) leadership continues to experience administrative glitches three weeks shy of the poll date July 17.

Campaigning has started in earnest with main rivals plus a splinter group busy making their rounds to the nine NUBE branches peninsula-wide.

The election seeks to end a four-year leadership impasse between two main factions led respectively by Abdul Jalil Hamid and J Solomon, and Muhammad Fauzi Shamsuddin and Mohd Noor Basir.

Contacted yesterday, Director-General of Trades Union (DGTU) Mohd Zubir Mohd Basri said a meeting with the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) earlier today had discussed matters pertaining to the NUBE polls.

"We've already explained to the MTUC some of the complaints raised by NUBE members whose main grouse was alleged discrepancies in the voters list," he said.

"As I've said before, we will update the list accordingly," he added.

Two weeks ago, the banking sector union members in the Kuala Lumpur branch had raised a stink over the hassle posed by having separate polling and triennial general meeting (TGM) venues.

Larger venues unavailable

Mohd Zubir said it was unavoidable because other larger venues were unavailable for that day.

"We checked Wisma MCA but it was still under renovation. We even tried Putra World Trade Centre but it was booked for another function.

"I understand their concern given the large KL branch membership but it's not as if we didn't try other venues before deciding on the present arrangement," he added.

As per the schedule, KL members will cast their votes at the Human Resources Ministry's industrial training institute at Jalan Kuchai Lama near Old Klang Road while the TGM will be at Menara PGRM in Cheras later that night.

He said members will have to sacrifice a little because the 600-capacity institute will not be able to accommodate all the KL members.

Mohd Zubir said the complaints over postal ballots and polling venues in other states will be resolved before polling day.

Contacted later, MTUC president Syed Shahir Syed Mohamud said the meeting went well with an undertaking by the DGTU that his department will ensure a smooth election.

Following an April 20 order by the Court of Appeal for the DGTU to conduct fresh elections , the MTUC set up a five-member election watch committee to monitor the proceedings closely.

They are Syed Shahir, his deputy Abdul Halim Mansor, general-secretary G Rajasekaran, and vice-presidents Mohd Khalid Atan and Indera Putra Ismail.

Syed Shahir said the committee will monitor the conduct of the NUBE election "from start to finish".

"We have written a letter to the DGTU listing nine key issues raised by the NUBE membership for serious consideration and action," he said, adding that the letter was sent early this week.

More than 500 names were reportedly missing from the membership list, sparking off concerns over the transparency and fairness of the electoral process.

Only those registered as NUBE members as at Oct 31 2001 - about 23,000 - will be eligible to vote next month.