The Malaysian Students Solidarity (SMM) - a coalition of student bodies seen to be 'anti-establishment' - said premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi should investigate reports of irregularities and flaws in the campus polls.

"We hope Abdullah can form an independent commission to investigate the election process especially the allegations of irregularities, abuse of power and corruption which involve the integrity of universities," said SMM spokesperson Ginie Lim, when contacted.

Since 'pro-establishment' students met with Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak on campus elections yesterday, the rival faction is now seeking a meeting with Abdullah.

She said SMM has evidence and documents to be submitted to Abdullah so that he will have the right picture of the incidents on campus, rather than depend on information released by "certain quarters that have a vested interest".

About 40 students in the 'pro-establishment' camp had met with Najib yesterday and handed over a memorandum. Their demands included action against SMM by the internal security ministry over a protest staged outside Parliament last week.

Higher education ministry parliamentary secretary Dr Adham Baba, which was present, was reported by Malay dailies today as having rebutted SMM's claims that campus authorities have been involved in irregularities in the run-up to the campus polls tomorrow.

Adham said the claims have no basis. For instance, he defended the use of electronic voting as being in line with the government's efforts to fully utilise the technology. He said the boycott in five universities is a non-issue because a number of seats will still be contested.

(Students have argued the e-voting system lacks checks and balances, and claimed that the universities are nominating candidates from the 'pro-establishment' camp in order to ensure the elections will proceed.)

Onus on ministry

Responding, Lim said the onus was on the ministry to prove that there were no irregularities, since students have submitted evidence to the relevant parties.

"Adham shouldn't so dismissive even before he has conducted an investigation. We see this as an attempt to avoid addressing the issues. Our claims are supported by a police report, documents to the human rights commission and a court case filed by a student," she said.

She added that students had merely exercised their right to freedom of expressing by voicing their concerns during the protest, as much as those students who had met with Najib.

Suaram co-ordinator S Arutchelvan, in a statement, expressed disappointment over Adham's statement and called for professional handling of the students' complaints.

He also urged the ministry not to take disciplinary action against the students who participated in the protest, saying this action was well within their constitutional rights.

Students boycott

In another development, Bernama reported today that some students at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) are boycotting its elections because of dissatisfaction with several conditions.

The students' spokesperson, Wong Weng Hu said the wins by no contest for 35 of 37 seats at stake during nominations were because of withdrawals of candidates who were displeased with the conditions.

Speaking a news conference in Penang, he said among the conditions they were not satisfied were election campaign rules prohibiting the publishing and circulation of election manifestos within or outside the university except with the express permission of the Vice-Chancellor or his authorised agents and ballot papers printed with serial numbers.

Wong also said several candidates also withdrew after receiving threatening messages through the short messaging system (SMS) asking them not to contest.

During nominations, which was held simultaneously in all 17 universities nationwide on Monday, USM's pro-aspirations group won the 35 seats. The remaining two seats are being contested by three candidates.

Meanwhile, USM Vice-Chancellor, Prof Dzulkifli Abdul Razak when approached said the students concerned should have officially complained to USM's administration for the appropriate action to be taken.

He said the serial numbers were to prevent forgeries and reference in the event of disputes.

"USM wants the process to be transparent. We want to maintain a clean sheet as reported by the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) last year that the elections at USM were above board compared to other universities," he said.