KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah government wants the Election Commission (EC) and National Registration Department (NRD) to explain the abnormal spike in new voters in the state.
Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor said the matter had been discussed in the state Cabinet meeting on Wednesday (Oct 19) and the EC and NRD must come out to explain this.
He said the number of new voters in the latest electoral roll for all the parliamentary seats in the state was suspicious.
“There is something fishy going on and we ask that the EC and NRD directors clarify the issue next Tuesday (Oct 25),” he said when launching the Gabungan Rakyat Sabah (GRS) election machinery in Tenom district on Saturday (Oct 22).
Hajiji said this matter cannot be taken lightly, and GRS does not want any party to win from the votes of the doubtful new voters.
Previously, GRS members and allies including Sabah STAR, SAPP and PBS have asked for a clarification on this matter.
He said based on the latest electoral roll, Sabah has over 1.68 million voters compared with 1.1 million in 2018, which is a 54% increase.
Hajiji said the electoral roll shows that Sepanggar has the most number of voters at 107,463 people, followed by Lahad Datu (99,741) and Tawau (87,189).
On other matters, he said the state government will allocate some land from the Sabah Forest Industries (SFI) to turn into village reserves for the people.
“We want to make sure locals living within the SFI state-land get to live in a gazetted village,” he said.
Earlier at the event, Hajiji accepted the applications of over 1,000 former Parti Warisan and PKR supporters into GRS.
