by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Penang on Wednesday, 7th February 1990:
Why is Election Commission deliberately misleading the Malaysian people about the snap 21-day voters’ registration campaign beginning on March 1?
I am very disappointed by the Election Commission for deliberately misleading the Malaysian people about the snap 21-day voters’ registration campaign to begin on March 1, primarily to register the 300,000 to 500,000 UMNO Baru members who have not registered as voters.
Despite my repeated statements, State Assemblies well as an Open Letter to the Election Commission Chairman, Tan Sri Abdul Kadir Talib, and other members of the Election Commission, the Election Commission has continued to mislead the public about the snap voters’ registration exercise.
Although the Election Commission has not openly and publicly made a statement either denying or confirming my revelation that the Election Commission is to conduct a snap 21-day voters’ registration exercise from March 1 on the directive of UMNO Baru, the Election Commission has, without attributing sources, told the local press that there was a proposal to conduct voters’ registration exercise in March, but a final decision had not been taken. It said that the Election Commission’s supervisor Committee would hold a meeting at the end of this month to decide whether to have a voters’ registration campaign in March.
Who is the Election Commission bluffing?
How can the Election Commission, at its meeting at the end of February, decide that a voters’ registration exercise be conducted in the next few days on March 1, when the Election Commission would need about two months to prepare for such a nation-wide exercise?
In actual fact, the Election Commission had received the instruction from UMNO Baru in early January and had started preparing for the snap 21-day voters’ registration exercise to begin on March 1.
The important question is why the Election Commission is hiding this fact from the Malaysian people. This can only reinforce the conclusion that UMNO Baru and the government is not only interfering with the Constitutional independence of the Election Commission, but that the Election Commission has become an apparatus of UMNO Baru to register the 300,000 – 500,000 UMNO Baru members as eligible voters.
Is Election Commission asking for proof that it had instructed State election officials to launch a snap 21-day voters’ registration exercise on March 1?
In actual fact, the Election Commission has decided on the snap 21-day voters’ registration campaign, and I am prepared to produced proof that the Election Commission has instructed the State Election official on this snap voters’ registration exercise. Is the Election Commission asking for proof that it has instructed State election officials to launch a snap 21-day voters’ registration exercise from March 1?
The secretive and surreptitious manner in which the Election Commission is preparing for the snap 21-day voters’ registration campaign will seriously undermine the confidence of the opposition parties and the Malaysian people at large in the independence and impartiality of the Election Commission to conduct a clean, honest and fair general elections.
It is time for the Election Commission Chairman, Tan Sri Abdul Talib Kadir, to come out of hiding and do his constitutional duty and tell Malaysians what exactly is going on.