RCI must immediately begin and complete job before GE – Bumburing

TAMPARULI: The Royal Commission of Inquiry on the presence of illegal immigrants in Sabah must be allowed to carry out its job before the 13th general election.

Angkatan Perubahan Sabah (APS) president Datuk Seri Panglima Wilfred M Bumburing in making the call said this would ensure that the electoral rolls would be purged of illegal voters.

Speaking at a Pakatan Rakyat-APS public seminar here recently, the Tuaran member of parliament urged the federal government to let the RCI on illegal immigrants to completely carry out their functions and finish their job before the 13th general election was called.

“This will thereafter pave the way for the electoral rolls to be rectified and cleaned up by getting rid of any illegal voters. In this respect, the RCI must immediately begin their job in order to complete their job in time.

“The Election Commission must also follow up by getting rid of any questionable voters. We fully support the call by Bersih to have a free and fair election and this means to clean up the electoral rolls from any illegal or phantom voters,” Bumburing said.

He added that APS respected and accepted any political groups given the mandate to form the next government only if the said government elected to power was elected through the due process of law by not having any dubious voters listed in the electoral rolls.

APS, he claimed, had discovered one glaring example where a woman voter whose home address was stated as being in Peninsular Malaysia but listed as a voter in the Silam constituency.

Although the Election Commission may have done their so-called cleaning up in the past, however, the outcome of the RCI will be able to assist them to enable to speed up the process, he said.

At the same time APS is ready to provide any assistance to the authorities if necessary, to identify any dubious voters that might still be listed in the electoral rolls.

“One of the core struggles of APS is to urge the federal authorities to restore the trust promised to Sabah as provided for in the Malaysia Agreement in return for Sabah’s agreeing to the formation of Malaysia.

“This also includes the guarantee that Sabah’s sovereignty will be protected which have now been clearly violated when the federal government blatantly awarded citizenships to undeserving foreigners through dubious means.

“These new “citizens” thereafter were then listed in electoral rolls as voters which enabled them to participate in the country’s electoral process, thus giving them the same rights as the locals. This clearly is a violation of our sovereign rights as Malaysian citizens which should have been protected by the BN government,” Bumburing stressed.

The function was also attended by Tuaran DAP chairman Peter Liew, PKR National Council member Datuk Kalakau Untol, APS vice-presidents Datuk Dr Richard Gunting and Datuk Herman Tiongsoh, APS secretary general Petrus Guriting and several leaders from other PR component members.