Subject: Tapah ( Perak ) Aspirant: Cops pushed me out of counting hall
Tapah aspirant: Cops pushed me out of counting hall
 |
|
He
was pushed out of the Tapah constituency counting centre, the Dewan
Merdeka in the town, by members of the police Light Strike Force at 11pm on Sunday.
Vasantha Kumar said eight policemen pushed him out after he queried
Election Commission (EC) officers on what he calimed were irregularities
as there were mixed votes in ballot boxes and missing ballot boxes. The
missing boxes had not arrived at the counting centre as at 11pm.
The postal votes had allegedly been combined with the parliamentary and state constituency ballot papers in the mixed ballot
boxes.
“I
requested a recount because the parliamentary and state ballot papers
were mixed up in one parliament ballot box. Further, there were ballot
papers placed outside the box.
“I made the request also because four boxes from Chenderiang and five
boxes from Ayer Kuning were not in the counting hall at the Dewan
Merdaka. Following the request, EC officers brought in two boxes from
Ayer Kuning. The other seven boxes had still not arrived.
“At the same time, I requested the 91 Form 14s from the 91 polling
centres and an EC officer refused, Vasantha Kumar told Malaysiakini. 
“Some
of the Form 14s were not properly signed and endorsed by the EC
officers.
“It was at this point that BN’s candidate, M Saravanan, came into the
centre and raised his voice and ‘threatened’ me. “I told him to not
interfere as this was a dispute between me and the EC. The dispute was
over the ballot papers from the state seats of Chenderiang and Ayer
Kuning.
“At that point the results for the Perak state seats were 29 for BN and
28 for Pakatan. I insisted on the recount because the results from
these two seats would be the deciding factor in the formation of the
next Perak government.
“When I insisted that these documents be produced before the
announcement of the results, the returning officer instructed the
olice to push my
polling agents and me out of the hall.”
At
this juncture, Vasantha Kumar said, “Saravanan threw a chair at me
while I was being pushed out.”
“I was shocked when the police manhandled me, pushing me 50m out of the
centre, while Saravanan and his assistant tried to attack me. However,
the police stopped them.” Vasantha Kumar claimed that he and his
counting agents were pushed out by the police all the way to the main
road outside the hall.
‘No representative to monitor ballot boxes’ “The policemen then barricaded the counting hall and did not allow me to go in. At that time I had no representative inside in the hall to esnure that the ballot boxes were not tampered with.” He alleged that during this time, Saravanan and the two BN candidates for the two state seats (Chenderiang and Ayer Kuning) were allowed to be inside the hall as the results were being finalised.
Vasantha
Kumar said the EC officers directed the policemen to keep him outside
the hall for about an hour.
“After an hour I demanded that as the official candidate for Tapah, I
should be allowed into the hall.” Upon his re-entry into the hall,
Vasantha Kumar walked straight to the returning officer and requested
the verification of the 91 Form 14s from all the 91 polling centres and a
recount of the ballot papers.
“The returning officer declined my request. He told me to take any
dispute on the matter
to the
courts. “I disagreed with the results they were about to announce as
the Form 14s were not furnished and there was no proper recount of the
postal votes and ballot papers. Shortly afterward, about 1am, the results were announced - that BN’s Saravanan and its two state assembly candidates had won.”
These
two state assembly results clinched BN’s victory in the Perak state
assembly, with 31 seats over Pakatan’s 28.
Vasantha Kumar lodged a report at the Tapah police station at 1.30am
yesterday. He said that he was willing to appear before any tribunal and
provide his evidence, with video recordings and pictures of the
high-handed actions on the part of the authorities.
When contacted and asked about the
presence
of police in the counting hall, returning officer Razali Bakar said he
could not make any statement without referring to the higher
authorities.
No comments:
Post a Comment