In a democratic country nothing is more important than the proper conduct of elections “without fear or favour”  That is why such countries have strict laws governing election procedures; based on one person one vote and total secrecy concerning who a voter voted for.

Although Malaysia has such laws and procedures, they have long been ignored by BN who found them a real handicap to fixing election results in their favour and now the Election Commissions serve simply as camouflage for blatant election rigging.

In past Sarawak State elections the task of these authorities has been made easier with the excuse that difficulties of travel and or vote collecting and counting make adherence to  election law impossible.

So ballot boxes have been stored where they could be, and have been, tampered with.  Boxes from areas where opposition support is strong have even disappeared. If any of these crimes have been noticed by the Commission no action has been taken.

First, even in Sarawak, there are still provisions in election law allowing all parties access to supervise the voting process. In the past requests to this end have been refused or simply ignored. Ths time it must be dfferent. Today ordinary people have facilities that they did not have before. Almost all mobile phones have a camera facility which can be used to record election offences. More sophisticated cameras capable of recording from outside Commission imposed barriers exisr and opposition parties must ensure these are available where they will be useful.

Permitted election observers must be properly briefed  on the law and common malpractices and how to record and report these in a manner that cannot be ignored. Opposition parties must use any means available to them to make it known and plain to Election Commission members and staff that malpractice WILL be recorded and followed up. Faced with incontrovertible evidence election petitions ( and these will probably be needed) cannot be ignored or denied for “lack of evdence”; as in the past.

The basic assumption must be that BN WILL use vote cheating tactics on polling day in addition to widespread bribery in the days immediately before . The vital thing is to colect the evdence  and Opposition parties have not much time left to organise this.

ACT NOW,