SUBANG JAYA: Electoral reform NGO Tindak Malaysia has criticised the Government's decision to award armed forces and journalists with advance postal votes at the People's Tribunal on GE13.
Tindak Malaysia founder PY Wong told the tribunal's panel on Wednesday that there was no reason for armed forces or journalists to be given a postal vote during his testimony as an expert witness.
He said that not all armed forces were on duty during election day, there was no reason for all of them to be able to send an advance postal vote.
He claimed that advance voting made it easier for vote tampering to occur as the ballots were kept for longer.
He also questioned why journalists should have postal votes, as they worked in the public sector.
PY Wong alleged that the Election Commission (EC) were not as neutral as they were supposed to be.
"EC members come from civil service... Sometimes they still think that they are civil servants, serving the government instead of the public," he told the presiding panel members which include constitutional law expert Yash Pal Ghai, former Indonesian EC deputy chairman Ramlan Surbakti (former deputy chairman of the Indonesian Election Commission), and lawyer and former diplomatic officer with the Foreign Affairs Ministry Datuk Azzat Kamaludin
Wong pointed out that both the deputy chairman Datuk Wan Ahmad Wan Omar and chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof had admitted they could be Umno members.
The legal team for the tribunal is headed by Professor Gurdial Singh of the University of Malaya.
