WITH Prime Minister Najib Razak facing a tough fight at the polls on May 9, observers fear the high stakes mean that cheating by the long-ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition will be more rampant than ever before, AFP reports.

Phantom voters, electoral roll tampering, mysterious power blackouts during recounts – vote-rigging is not new in Malaysian elections, but electoral watchdog Bersih and activists are bracing for what they fear will be the dirtiest election in Malaysian history.

“This election is not just dirty, it is filthy,” Bridget Welsh, a Malaysia expert from John Cabot University, told AFP. “Najib’s insecurity is delegitimising the electoral process.”

Even before a single ballot has been cast, Bersih said the general election was already an “open auction with votes for sale” due to leaders – mainly from BN but the opposition is also guilty – giving out gifts of money,TVs, food hampers and more.

Bersih told AFP it had so far received more than 80 complaints from the public, including of “phantom” voters – dead people whose names appear on the electoral roll or people whose names have appeared without them registering.

At the last election in 2013, when BN lost the popular vote for the first time since Merdeka in 1957, there were numerous allegations of cheating.

There were reports of “dubious” voters including foreigners being flown into key constituencies in Malaysia to vote for BN.

Supposedly indelible ink touted by the government as guaranteed protection against multiple voting was found to easily wash off the finger.

Sudden electricity blackouts at polling centres were also experienced during vote recounts, fuelling suspicions of ballot tampering – which the ruling coalition denied.

In the hope of stemming what they expect to be a tsunami of cheating, Bersih and other groups are training volunteers to monitor voting on polling day. Bersih has also set up an online platform to report instances of alleged rigging.

But it is already to late to fight some instances of alleged poll rigging, said the report.

Weeks before Parliament was dissolved, the government pushed through a redrawing of electoral boundaries, in a move that critics say unfairly favours the ruling coalition by creating constituencies dominated by their Malay Muslim supporters.

While Najib’s former mentor turned nemesis Dr Mahathir Mohamad has predicted cheating on a grand scale, critics say this is rich coming from a man who faced numerous accusations of fraud at polls during his own time in office.

However, Welsh from John Cabot University said that vote-rigging has become more serious under Najib: “Elections are supposed to be a contest—Najib wants it to be a beating.” – April 30, 20130