By Shannon Teoh
The Malaysian Insider
Apr 10, 2012
KUALA LUMPUR, April 10 — Over 400,000 dubious voters are on the electoral roll, enough to swing 35 federal seats either way and decide if Pakatan Rakyat (PR) can capture Putrajaya or Barisan Nasional (BN) reclaim its customary two-thirds supermajority in Parliament, according to a polls analysis.
Independent political analyst Ong Kian Ming said his Malaysian Electoral Roll Analysis Project (MERAP) found some 100,000 problematic names and combined with other previously highlighted issues, would “easily amount to over 400,000 dubious voters.”
Cleaning up the electoral roll is a key demand by the opposition and activist groups although BN say PR’s five-state victory in Election 2008 is proof there is no irregularity.
Ong told The Malaysian Insider this is likely “just the tip of the iceberg” as there may be other discrepancies that have not yet been uncovered by various parties who have combed through the gazette of over 12 million voters.
“If you divide 400,000 between 222 federal seats, it would average to about 1,800 voters. This is enough to potentially decide 35 seats,” he said, referring to the seats that had slim victories for either coalition.
“If voter sentiment is the same as 2008, then this can add the 30 seats PR needs to form federal government or the eight more BN needs to regain two-thirds,” said the political analyst.
The ruling BN only took 140 seats, losing its customary two-thirds majority in Parliament in Election 2008 as well as four state governments and Kelantan, which has remained in PAS hands for 20 over years. A coalition needs 112 MPs to gain a simple majority and 148 to win two-thirds.
Ong’s project traced over 100,000 voters with one of these 10 issues — above 85 years old, gender inconsistent with identity card (IC), same name and similar birth date, born overseas, Klang Valley voters who do not have house addresses, postal voters with regular ICs, spouses of police who are postal voters, spouses of army and police voters who have the same gender, army and police voters above retirement age and army and police postal voters who are above recruitment age.
But, he said, this did not include other problems such as dozens and even thousands of voters registered at the same address and 42,000 voters whose ICs could not be found in the National Registration Department’s (NRD) database.
Ong also said there was a high concentration of dubious voters in Selangor, the country’s wealthiest state which Datuk Seri Najib Razak has pledged to take back “at all cost.”
He said the electoral roll from the last quarter of 2011 showed the number of voters in Selangor had increased by over 340,000 or 21.8 per cent to more than 1.9 million voters since the 2008 general election compared to a national average of 16.3 per cent.
He singled out the marginal seat of Hulu Selangor as experiencing an increase of 17,000 voters, or a whopping 27.1 per cent since the March 2008 general election.
The credibility of the electoral roll has been widely questioned since a Parliamentary Select Committee was set up late last year to look into electoral improvements.
The panel completed its six-month tenure and submitted its findings to Parliament last week but the opposition and civil society have criticised it for lacking specific recommendations on how to clean up the voter register.
Electoral reform movement Bersih then announced it would hold a third rally for free and fair elections on April 28.
Prime Minister Najib had announced the formation of the bipartisan polls committee in August 2011, after being condemned in the international press for his administration’s clampdown on Bersih’s July 9 rally last year which drew tens of thousands to the streets of the capital.
Umno the GOD of all gods command that all Hamba deBullys immediately stop commenting on the issue as doing so means anti-agung, anti-sultan, anti-melayu (actually it means anti-umnoputras), anti-islam jenis umno, ungratefulness, unpatriotic and is terrorism and communism; and can result in detention under the ISA and revocation of citizenship and one may even be forced to commit suicide by self-strangulation or by jumping off the fifth floor of a building.
Jib Jib Boleh.
Ros Ros Cantik.
Actually while this number does not surprise me, it dissapoints me again how pathetic Najib-led UMNO-Perkasa/BN is – did they think PR can’t add or that voters simply are just so apathetic they won’t care their rights are being stolen in chunks by chunks?
Everyone already expected UMNO-Perkasa/BN to cheat and yes the voters are apathetic only to a certain degree to think they would not notice that 15% of the seat is equivalent to deciding the election for them outright i.e., there is no point to an election?
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know who is behind all these irregularities and even more importantly, who has the power to cause such irregularities!!
That’s why Bersih 3.0 is on the way!!!!
Off Topic…
When our Bolehland coward police forces would act like this???? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17655300
Only one single mistake, the chief head stepped down voluntarily for his/her led police force negligence…
Whereas our Bolehland police chief/head hung on to the office with bunch of lies and excuses; yet his/her nose stuck high in the air without an apology…
No wonder, smart foreign investors shun away!!!!! Our Bolehland are policing with bunch of suckers!!!
Slowly-slowly we sneak below par of Burmese.
The Burmese junta defined their parliament military quotas by constitution. In Myanmar junta has quota of 25% of legislators across 3 chambers of parliaments. Like us, their military junta is ready to hold these constitutions at all cost. Anyway, Myanmar system is cleaner compare to ours, it is clearly defined, nothing dirty.
Just follow what Myanmar did, defined the parliament quota for Umno in constitution; at least we know what to expect.
With apologies to Boney M’s Ma Baker – – –
PR campaign song for the coming 13 GE—–
Freeze! I’m Ma Izzat – put your hands in the air,
Gimme all your money
This is the story of Ma Izzat, the meanest cat
From ol’ KL town
She was the meanest cat
In old KL town
She was really mowed them down
She had no heart at all
No no no heart at all
She was the meanest cat
Oh she was realy tough
She left her husband flat
He wasn’t tough enough
She took her cows along
‘Cause they were mean and strong
(chorus)
Ma Ma Ma Ma – Ma Izzat – she got a quarter million bucks
Ma Ma Ma Ma – Ma Izzat – to rear a few cows
Ma Ma Ma Ma – Ma Izzat – she never could try
Ma Ma Ma Ma – Ma Izzat – but she knew how to con
Our democracy has no meaning if the electoral roll is manipulated.
I have some problems with those I helped to register to vote. To whom can I send the list, so that it can be added to the above problem. Their names appear in the electoral list but are not eligible to vote yet.
It has always been known that that the way to a PR win is never a sure thing. It will be fraught with a lot of thorns amid the roses.
So whenever PR leaders say they are ‘ready’, I always wonder if they really are. Brave but empty talk gets you nowhere.