Police report lodged on indelible ink issue

Charles Ramendran and Husna Yusop,

The Sun, page 2

Friday, 23 May 2008

KUALA LUMPUR: The Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih) and the National Institute for Electoral Integrity (NIEI) yesterday lodged a police report against four top government offi cials for allegedly conspiring to scrap the use of indelible ink in the last general election and for misleading voters into believing there was sabotage by certain quarters. Bersih secretariat member Faisal Mustaffa lodged the report at the Dang Wangi district police headquarters, naming Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail,  Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan and Elections Commission (EC) chairman Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman. He said there were contradicting versions given by the four on why and who ordered the scrapping of the use of the ink to identify those who had already voted.

"This refl ects very badly on the country now that it is clear there never was any case of anyone trying to misuse the ink. The so-called move to use the ink for a fair and transparent election was called off merely on hearsay. So we want the authorities to investigate how the IGP came up with claims that four police reports were lodged and the others for supporting the proposal to scrap the ink," he said.

NIEI executive director Amin Shah Iskandar said he had acted as an international observer of elections in a dozen countries where indelible ink was used and they never faced any problems. "Here we were told just four days before the election that the plan was being scrapped over some claim which was just hearsay. It appears there was never an intention to use the ink in the fi rst place and they have wasted RM2.4 million of taxpayers’ money," said Amin, who was an observer in Nepal’s election last month.

Amin said the ink was specially made and its sale was strictly regulated by its producers exclusively for election purposes.

On March 4 – four days before the 12th general election – Abdul Rashid, Musa and Abdul Ghani had announced the scrapping of the use of indelible ink as it may be subjected to abuse. Musa had also said four police reports were lodged and four people were questioned over the smuggling of the ink. However, last week, to a question put to him by an opposition MP, Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar revealed that the scrapping of the use of indelible ink was based merely on hearsay. It was later also revealed that there were neither police reports nor any proof the ink had been smuggled in.

The issue took up time at the Dewan Rakyat yesterday, as opposition MPs asked the same questions posed by Bersih.  Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Nazri Abdul Aziz maintained that it was the EC’s decision but the MPs did not accept this because, during the press conference before the election, Abdul Rashid had announced that it was the cabinet’s decision.  Nazri also said the decision was based on various grounds, but this only confused the MPs further.

Karpal Singh (DAP-Bukit Gelugor) called for Nazri to be referred to the Committee of Privileges for misleading and confusing the MPs.

Nazri said the cancellation of the ink was because it would not serve its actual objective of preventing people from voting twice.