‘Sabah natives, T’ganu EC officers were paid’

A witness says natives in Sabah, and Election Commission officers in Terengganu were paid in attempts to manipulate the GE in BN's favour.

SUBANG JAYA: An amateur video recording showing a native community chief in Lebaran, Sabah allegedly giving out money to voters to vote for Barisan Nasional during the GE13 was shown to the public in the last day of the Bersih’s People’s Tribunal this afternoon.

The two-minute video, recorded using a mobile phone, was produced before the tribunal panelists by Akmal Nasir, the director of National Oversight and Whistleblowers (NOW).

During the proceeding, Akmal explained that NOW had received the video from an orang asal, clearly showing that the native community leader in Kampung Sungai Beruang giving out the cash to the voters who prior to the GE had ‘registered’ their names into the chief’s namelist.

“The community chief has a list of names of the people. Once checked they were given cash money as they voted for BN,” he told the tribunal.

“Some did not receive the money although they too voted for BN because their names were not registered in the name list.

“The community chief apologised to those who did not get the money and said next time, referring to the general election,” he said.

Meanwhile, Akmal also revealed that 24 Election Commission officers were allegedly given RM100 in cash by a returning officer in Besut, Terengganu during the early polling period.

The 24 officers, who were postal voters, were asked to hand over their ballot papers to the RO before receiving the cash.

“The RO demanded their ballot papers and they got RM100 in exchange,” he claimed.
When asked on how he obtained this information, Akmal said a police report was lodged by one of the EC officers who had allegedly received the money.

“One of the officers lodged a report,” he said.

The tribunal hearing, which started on Sept 18, ends today with Bersih’s co-chairman S Ambiga set to testify later.

By Alfian ZM Tahir