BARISAN Nasional and the Election Commission claimed that Pakatan Harapan’s win in GE14 only showed there was no cheating involved.

Not so fast.

Electoral reform group Bersih 2.0, which monitored the whole process, said otherwise.

Bersih 2.0 acting chairman Shahrul Aman Mohd Saari said the more likely scenario would be: PH triumphed despite the election being rigged against it in nearly every aspect by the EC.

In what the group considers to be the worse election so far ever since it started monitoring the national polls, Shahrul said the EC had acted in ways which allegedly gave an unfair advantage to BN.

This campaign of collusion was evident throughout the whole electoral process from the redrawing of election boundaries to mismanagement of overseas postal votes and ad hoc rules during the campaign period, he said.

Shahrul said Bersih also received numerous complaints that sparked suspicions that the EC attempted to change the electoral results after they were counted on May 9.

“In 2018, we saw a progression in terms of cheating and rigging of the system that I would say was definitely more serious compared with past elections,” Shahrul told Malaysia Decides.

“We monitored the election process since redelineation and the registration of new voters. In the end, it showed there was some desperation on the part of some parties to ensure that they won.”

BN secretary-general Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor and EC chairman Hashim Abdullah said PH’s historic win over BN proved that the elections were clean and fair.

Before the polls, Bersih 2.0 and PH criticised the EC for attempting to stack the odds in BN’s favour.

One of the most egregious examples of this manipulation was the redrawing of electoral boundaries or redelineation, which was gerrymandered to help BN, said Shahrul.

“PH seats were malapportioned to bigger sizes and BN seats were made smaller by a factor of two to four.”

The result was that parliamentary seats held by PH had an average of 79,000 voters while the population in BN seats averaged about 45,000.

During the 11-day campaign period itself, the EC came up with ad hoc rules, such as disallowing certain personalities on campaign posters while some candidates were barred from nomination centres.

Throughout the 11 days, EC officers went around cutting out the faces of PH chairman Dr Mahathir Mohamad from the coalition’s posters.

In the Rantau state constituency in Negri Sembilan, PH candidate Dr S. Streram was stopped from submitting his nomination forms by an EC officer who was allegedly an active Umno supporter.

“On his Facebook, he was campaigning for Umno with the ex-menteri besar (Mohamad Hassan). This puts down EC’s credibility.”

The night the votes were being counted, Bersih alleged that the delay in announcing the results was abnormal compared with previous elections.

“In the past, it was the trend that BN’s wins were announced earlier to allow the formation of government.”

This observation dovetails with the Malaysia Decides’ own election night coverage where announcement of the results seemed to stall from about 9pm to midnight.

Bersih is checking claims that EC officers refused to sign the Form 14 – a document certifying the results after all ballots have been counted.

The document has to be signed by the EC and agents from all contesting political parties before the results for a particular seat are declared.

“This (delay) can further emphasise that there is a possibility that EC was trying to change the results. We are still verifying this and we appeal to counting agents and even officers to come forward if they have proof.” – May 19, 2018.