updated version

The proposal to gazette the electoral roll to be legally unchallengeable, purportedly to put the phantom voters issue to rest, has sparked outrage from at least two national leaders.

Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) president Joseph Pairin Kitingan today said the proposal will endanger the right of citizenship and create an injustice to Malaysians.

"If there is evidence to prove that foreigners appear on the roll, registered by certain syndicates, then it is totally against the democratic spirit if the citizen cannot make an objection," said Pairin.

Yesterday, minister in the Prime Minister's Department Rais Yatim said the Federal Constitution will be amended next week to prevent legal challenges to an electoral roll by making the roll definitive once gazetted.

Rais was reported as saying that this will also indirectly "help eliminate the problem of phantom voters", though he offered no explanation.

(Phantom voters are those who use fake identity cards or cards that belong to others to register as genuine voters.)

Express rejection

Pairin also countered yesterday's assurance by the Election Commission (EC) that the new electoral roll for Likas was clean of phantom voters and that all the names on the roll had been validated through the National Registration Department (NRD) records.

The party found out that the names of the three foreigners who possessed fake ICs are still on the Likas electoral roll.

"Their names should have been deleted," he said, adding, "it is clear that the EC has not cleaned up the roll."

Pairin cited an example of one person's photograph appearing in three identification documents that contained different names and numbers, provided by the NRD.

The by-election issue is not about development, he said, urging the Likas voters to express trough their votes, their rejection of the damaging practice of phantom voting.

"What is the use of development if your right has been taken away silently? This is about our future and the sovereignty of Malaysia," he stressed.

Pairin, a former Sabah chief minister, said Likas voters should lead Malaysians in combating the problem.

He said a lot of people are still buying fake identity cards from syndicate groups, paying RM30, RM50, or as high as RM100 for them. He urged the federal government to take firm action on the matter.

Unprecedented threat

Meanwhile, DAP national chairperson Lim Kit Siang condemned the proposed constitutional amendment, saying it will legalise the presence of phantom voters.

Echoing Pairin's call, Lim said in a press statement that the public should protest such a move and the Likas community can start by voting against Barisan Nasional (BN) in the by-election tomorrow.

"(The proposed amendment) is a constitutional outrage ... and when passed, Malaysia will be the only country that provides constitutional protection to non-citizens and phantom voters to vote and shape the future of the country," he said.

Lim said the proposed amendment would constitute an "unprecedented threat to the integrity of the electoral system".

He added that following the judgment of Justice Muhammad Kamil Awang on June 8 on the existence of non-citizens and phantom voters on the Likas electoral roll, the government should have deployed all resources available to clean up the rolls.

Muhammad Kamil, in deciding an election petition, ruled that the Likas electoral roll was illegal as it contained phantom voters. He ordered former Sabah chief minister Yong Teck Lee, a member of a BN component party, to vacate his state assembly seat.

The ruling paved the way for tomorrow's by-election. The petition was brought by two other losing candidates in the 1999 state elections - veteran politician and former Sabah chief minister Mohd Harris Salleh and PBS supreme council member Dr Chong Eng Leong.

Following the ruling, the Elections Commission (EC) explained that it was not at fault for the existence of phantom voters in the roll as everyone with an identity card will be registered as a voter.

Deputy Prime Minister and Home Affairs Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi then directed the National Registration Department (NRD) to assist the EC in ensuring that only citizens with original identity cards be registered as voters.