Election commission chairman Tan Sri Mohd Hashim Abdullah giving a press conference at Wisma SPR, May 9, 2018. — Bernama pic

KUALA LUMPUR, May 14 — The Election Commission (EC) rejected today electoral reform group Bersih 2.0’s allegations that it had “manipulated’ the 14th general election to favour some political parties.

EC chairman Tan Sri Mohd Hashim Abdullah pointed out that the entire election including advance voting and standard polling by ordinary voters were conducted by 259,000 election workers appointed from the public and were monitored by the agents of candidates.

“The EC stresses that the entire GE14 process was conducted transparently and fairly without any elements of manipulation towards anyone,” he said in a statement today.

“The EC has never acted to interfere in all the matters including during the process of counting and tallying of the ballot papers,” he added.

Mohd Hashim cited the GE14 results in which Pakatan Harapan defeated Barisan Nasional to form the federal government as proof of a fair election.

“The GE14 full results that favor the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition and the smooth and orderly transition of government clearly proves that GE14 had been conducted transparently and fairly.

“In this matter, the EC is prepared to provide full cooperation to prove that there was no manipulation or abuses during the GE14 process,” he said.

Earlier today, Bersih 2.0 issued its preliminary post-election findings on GE14, in which it held the EC responsible for allegedly ruining the integrity of the 2018 polls.

Bersih 2.0 listed 10 alleged wrongdoings by the EC, including what it insists is the unconstitutional redrawing of election boundaries to unfairly benefit BN; fixing polling day on a Wednesday; fixing the campaign period to the bare minimum of 11 days; alleged arbitrary disqualification; and prevention of candidates from being nominated.

Among the 10 items listed out were the alleged failure to clean up the electoral roll and to prevent phantom voters; alleged failure to act on election offences such as vote-buying; alleged failure to reform the postal and advance voting systems and also failure to allow meaningful election observation including by stopping the Malaysian Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) from being an accredited observer.

Bersih 2.0 said it received 278 complaints from voters that fall within these 10 categories, concluding that these complaints and alleged “multiple failures” in the electoral process and system meant that GE14 was “already not clean, free or fair even before the polling day”.

The 278 complaints include 62 cases of wrongly-labelled state and Parliament ballot boxes, 37 cases of officers refusing to properly cross names off the electoral roll, and 36 cases of impersonation or phantom voters.

Bersih 2.0 today demanded that all seven Election Commissioners resign immediately, also urging for election officers to be charged for allegedly breaching the law both before and during GE14.