PAS is seeking divine intervention to chase away phantom voters from infiltrating the Pengkalan Pasir by-election.

The party today announced that it will hold two sessions of special prayers to chase away the phantom voters - at 8.30pm tonight and another one at 4am tomorrow - at Majid Kasa in Pasir Mas.

"The prayer sessions will be to seek God's help not to allow phantom voters to disrupt the elections," said PAS secretary general Kamaruddin Jaafar who two days ago offered a RM15,000 reward for information on phantom voters

A party worker Wan Johari said holding special prayers for the purpose showed the seriousness of the party towards the issue as many believed that only such "dirty tactics" could steal the victory from PAS.

He said based on the response from the people, PAS's candidate Hanifa Mat Yatim stands a good chance to win the seat by an increased majority.

"This is if there is no hanky panky. Based on previous elections, we know that phantom voters cannot be taken lightly. It is very suspicious that Barisan Nasional leaders are confident that the voters' turnout will be very high. They may have plans to bring in illegal voters from outside," he said.

Only an allegation

PAS may have a problem convincing the Election Commission (EC) to take the issue of phantom voter seriously especially when its chairperson Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman does not believe there is such a term as "phantom voter."

"There is no definition of phantom voter. I believe that definition came from confusion over the 3.5 million voters who are registered in a constituency which they are not living and working in.

He said from the complaints he received from PAS, the closest definition he can think of is "impersonating voters".

"Maybe the closest definition would be impersonating voters. But to date no impersonation of voter had ever happened in the country. There is no proof and it remains an allegation," Abdual Rahid told a press conference at a hotel in Kota Bharu today.

He however assured that the complaints will not be ignored, adding that EC officers would "screen" any suspicious voters on polling day.

"The commission must be transparent, fair and just. We will cooperate with all parties including the independent candidate. We want every party to leave the by-election with the satisfaction that it was conducted in a clean and fair manner."

Request for Form 11

Meanwhile, PAS deputy president Nasharuddin Mat Isa wants the EC to equip all party election workers with Form 11 which provides information on the identification of voters to ensure these "impersonators" are kept away on polling day.

He said the request was made to Abdul Rashid in a closed-door meeting between PAS leaders and the EC this morning.

"We have asked the EC to provide us with Form 11 so that we can ensure that the voters are genuine. We do mean to stop anyone from exercising their voting rights, that's not our intention but we want to make sure that the voter is not an imposter," he said.

He said PAS made the request as it has discovered several irregularities in the electoral roll.

"For example, we found several addresses which purportedly house a group of voters. But when we go to these addresses, the owners have no idea who these voters are. So far we have identified 70 suspicious names."

"We told the commission about this and they have promised to investigate."

Kamaruddin, who was also at the press conference, clarified that PAS takes the matter very seriously although it only involves less than one percent of the total 180,000 registered voters.

"When the margin of victory (in the last 2004 general election) was only 56 votes, 70 voters is not a small number."