Cleanest Polls For Sabah.

Election Commission (EC) Chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof said Wednesday that the country presently has the "cleanest electoral roll because the Commission is tidying it up on a daily basis."

This includes Sabah's, although certain testimonies heard in the ongoing Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) investigating the illegal immigrant issue in Sabah may have suggested otherwise.

The election this time around may be hot' and challenging, he said, but it would definitely not be the dirtiest.

He added that the list of voters in the current rolls are eligible Malaysian citizens whose identities have been verified by the National Registration Department.

The EC does 'cleaning up' of the electoral roll everyday with assistance from the relevant authorities, especially the National Registration Department (NRD)," he said, after presenting appointment letters to three non-governmental organisations (NGOs) who were made domestic observers for the 13th general election in Sabah and Labuan in a ceremony at the Magellan, Wednesday.

Abdul Aziz said observers need to abide by EC rules and are given a month to recruit their volunteers.

The EC will spend RM52 million to run the 13th general election in Sabah and Labuan. It is far less than the RM78m it would be spending in Sarawak despite the State only holding a parliamentary election.

Overall, RM400m has been allocated for the GE 13.

Meanwhile, Abdul Aziz said the NRD is the authority that determines whether an individual is a Malaysian or not, as well as whether the person was still alive.

Apart from the NRD, he said they also work with the Prisons Department on the criminal record of individuals as well as the Health Department for instances of unsound minds.

"So what I mean is that the present electoral roll the EC has containing 13.3 million voters up until December last year, is clean.

Firstly, because they are all citizens of this country.

And when I said this I mean that they are registered with the EC using identification documents already authenticated by the NRD," he said.

Also they are all aged 21 and above and, thirdly, they are still alive.

"And sometimes it is the electorates themselves who notified us to do correction like of their names, locality and so on.

Because it is only them and nobody else who can do amendments on their respective personal particulars," he said. This is besides the many improvements made to prevent cheating like the use of indelible ink and so on.

"So based on all these improvement made definitely the 13th general election will not be the dirtiest É the 13th general election may probably be the most challenging one, but not the dirtiest," he said.

Abdul Aziz said what happened in Sabah in the 1990 election is also coming together under the ongoing RCI hearing, adding four of the EC senior officials including the Sabah EC Director have also been called to testify before the RCI panel.

"But whatever it is, the present electoral roll we have is clean, and I guarantee this," he said, assuring the EC will comply with whatever recommendations the RCI panel may come up with which concern it.

Meanwhile, the three NGOs are Malaysian History Association Sabah branch, which was represented by its honorary secretary Sharifah Seri Lailah Tuanku Sh. Ahmad to receive the appointment letter, Federation of Chinese Association Sabah (FCAS) by its acting president Datuk Goh Tian Chuan and Sabah Youth Council, by its President Kevin T.P Lim.

The EC statistics showed that 969,497 registered voters in Sabah and 24,268 in Labuan are eligible to cast their votes in the election.

The new list of registered voters would only be gazetted at the end of this month.

Of the figure, for Sabah 951,506 are ordinary voters while 17,939 and 52 voters are categorised as postal voters and those who cast their votes at Malaysian embassies overseas, respectively.

In Labuan, there are 22,763 ordinary voters and 1,710 postal voters, while those to cast vote overseas, five.

Those present at the event also had a chance to watch the new theme song for the 13th general election which featured hip-hop group, One Nation Emcee.

Sources: Daily Express Sabah

16K Temporaray Receipt IC issue...

Former National Registration Department (NRD) Sabah Deputy Director, Mohd Nasir Sugip disclosed that about 16,000 temporary IC receipts (JPN 1/9 and 1/11) were issued to increase the number of voters in the 1994 State election.

Nasir, also an ISA detainee, was the 10th witness who was called before the Royal Commission Inquiry (RCI) on Illegal Immigrants in Sabah.

Presently the Managing Director of a company, he said he served in the public sector from 1980 to 1995 but held the deputy director post here from 1992 to1994. The Sabah NRD Director, at that time, he said, was Ramli Kamaruddin.

Nasir, from Johor, was detained under ISA on May 30, 1995 and was sent to a detention centre in Kamunting, Perak until he was released on May 30, 1998.

He said police arrested him under the ISA for allegedly issuing Malaysian ICs through dubious means and not adhering to the law.

Nasir told the RCI panel that the JPN 1/9 were temporary IC receipts while the JPN 1/11 were missing or lost IC receipts. He added the names in those receipts were eligible to vote.

He said the targets for the receipts were men and women over 20 years old who were Indonesians and Filipinos to increase the number of Bumiputera voters in the election. He said these holders were identified from the West and East Coasts of the State.

Conducting Officer Datuk Azmi Ariffin had to refresh the memory of Nasir by reading out his statement taken by an Investigating Officer appointed by the RCI on Dec 14 last year in Kuala Lumpur.

"Based on the statement, Nasir said he started to get involved in the task on 1992 to 1993 (involving P3 which was the temporary IC receipts that were suspected obtained through dubious means and not used by NRD).

"The Election Commission (EC) Director at that time was Datuk Wan Ahmad who called a NRD staff from the citizenship division named Azmi Abdul Karim and handed over a list of over 16,000 names listed in the EC roll to benefit as Bumiputera Muslim voters.

"Subsequently, Azmi had highlighted the matter to Ramli the NRD Sabah Director at that time and I was called by Ramli for discussion in his office together with Azmi and another NRD staff whom I forgot the name.

"Ramli had informed the matter to Deputy Director-General of NRD Awang bin Yaakub who had also issued a written order to carry out the project," Azmi said when reading out the statement in the hearing.

He further read that Nasir together with Ramli, Azmi Abdul Karim and another officer had signed an order to execute the project.

"Ramli later ordered us to use the names (over 16,000) in the EC list and changed all the particulars in the receipts (JPN 1/9 and JPN 1/11) to have more Bumiputera voters in Sabah.

"After that I was verbally ordered to assign staff who could be trusted to do the tasks in Sandakan, Semporna, Lahad Datu and in other districts in an operation named as 'Ops Durian Buruk (spoilt durian)'," Azmi said based on Nasir's statement.

To a question by the Conducting Officer, Nasir said the Ops Durian Buruk involved a change of the date of birth, photos and IC numbers based on the names given by the EC.

He said the Deputy Director-General of NRD had ordered the change of the identities of the holders and they signed a pledge to carry out the order together with Ramli and Azmi Abdul Karim.

He said no rewards were given to him for executing the operation and he was uncertain whether the holders were given any reward.

On whether the holders of the receipts were distributed across the State seats, Nasir said 800 such receipt holders were despatched to an east coast seat.

To a question from RCI Chairman Tan Sri Steve Shim, Nasir said there is some kind of collaboration and cooperation between the EC and NRD on this kind of exercise.

Ex-NRD Men: We Help Osu to win.

Another witness, Akob Damsah @ Yakop, who headed the NRD Tamparuli office until Jan. 8, 1996 told the panel that he was also included in the mission because he was authorised to sign at the back of the plastic blue ICs.

Former Sabah National Registration Department (NRD) Record Division Unit Head Asli Sidup responded in the affirmative when asked if he knew whether the holders of the JPN receipts indeed had cast their votes in the 1994 State Election.

He said that during that election he was stationed at one polling centre in a State Constituency in Papar to monitor the holders of about 200 JPN receipts casting their vote and that the winner who later became CM (Datuk Osu Sukam) won by 64 votes.

He said he was not given any "incentive" for doing the job.

Asli was released from ISA detention in 1997. His involvement began in the early 1990s until the day he was detained. He was called up by Rauf (ex-Sabah NRD Direetor) who directed him as well as three others including Asli to go to the house of the then Political Secretary to the Prime Minister in Kuala Lumpur, Datuk Aziz Shamshuddin.

Upon arrival, he said there were briefed about the "special task" by the ex-Pol Sec who was with another person who he did not recognise to issue blue ICs to immigrants in Sabah.

"Our duty was to sign the ICs É as a member of the public service we were subjected to the directive of our superior even though we knew it was wrong. We had to follow instructions," said Akob.

Confirming Asli's testimony, Akob said that based on the briefing the action was to increase the number of votes in Sabah.

"After that we just did our job and put our signature on the IC.

I can't remember how many but I estimated that within one month it was about 40,000," he said.

He also admitted that they were "blindly signing the documents."

Asked if they were given any incentive for doing the work, Akob said, "we were given assurance verbally that we would be protected against any legal action." The "work" was completed by another group before the ICs were sent to Petaling Jaya for the lamination process, he said.

To his knowledge, after processing of the ICs was completed they were taken back to Sabah and distributed to their supposed owners.

Asked if he knew if the applicants were authentic or not, he said he did not know because he never saw the application forms.

Most of the IC recipients were from the Philippines and Indonesia, he said, adding that he knew for a fact that they were eligible to vote.

"I was posted to various areas there the ICs were given out É we followed up to ensure the IC recipients are there and finally cast their votes," he said.

Sources: Daily Express