THE Election Commission’s (EC) decision to include security and health workers as postal voters in the 14th general election raises concerns a “dirty game” could be afoot in the coming polls, PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar said.

The party’s election director said the registration process of postal voters in the security worker category lacked transparency and left room for voters to be relocated to seats Barisan Nasional aimed to win.

“The electoral roll for postal voters is also not gazetted before the polls and candidates do not get any information on them,” she said in a statement today.

EC chairman Mohd Hashim Abdullah said last month that personnel of the fire and rescue and prisons departments,  government hospitals and clinics, Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency, and Police Volunteer Reserve would be allowed to vote by post.

“Can Rela members be categorised as volunteer police personnel and be allowed to vote by post? What about the auxiliary policemen, cadet corps and police reserve personnel?” Nurul Izzah said.

“Current data shows that there are 1,100 permanent Rela officers while close to 3.05 million are Rela volunteers.

“The minister, who has power to register Rela members, can place the personnel as postal voters in any state or parliamentary seat without having to give clear justification.”

She said it was doubtful that the EC would disclose the total number of postal voter categories at the last minute before the polls were called.

The decision was unpopular, she said, and would cause the public to perceive the EC to be working to “save the Umno and BN kleptocratic government by using postal votes as a final life line”.

The postal vote is a particular thorn in the opposition’s side, as Barisan Nasional held on to power in the last polls with 133 out of 222 parliamentary seats, nearly 30 of which were won by a slim majority thanks to postal votes.

Without the postal votes or early votes, the opposition said it would have taken 30 more seats for a total of 119 seats to take over Parliament.

“The EC must realise that the people are effected by the electoral manipulations through registration and relocation of postal voters,” Nurul Izzah said.

She said to ensure a transparent election, EC should count the early votes on the same day the votes were cast instead of keeping the early vote ballot boxes in the police lockups until the votes were counted on election day. – December 27, 2017.