PERMATANG PAUH, May 6 — The Election Commission’s (EC) decision to count votes for Thursday’s by-election at polling stations instead of the official tallying centre is an intimidation tactic, PKR’s Chua Tian Chang claimed yesterday.
The party vice president, better known as Tian Chua, said the move would intimidate voters from voting against the government, especially at polling stations with fewer voters such as in smaller villagers.
“The secrecy of their votes will be more or less jeopardised especially if it is a small community of maybe 40 to 50 households,” he told reporters at SP Arena yesterday.
“There might be a slight effect in more rural and agricultural areas where voters might worry about their agricultural subsidies if they were found to support Pakatan Rakyat instead of BN, but on the whole, it would not intimidate them,” he said.
He then criticised the EC for coming up with the new rulings when its main job — according to him — was to clean up the electoral roll to make sure it is clean and fair.
“In the end, the perception is that EC is not independent and not working in the manner that it should be,” he said.
Yesterday, the EC announced that the counting of votes in Permatang Pauh will be done at the polling centres after 5pm and that the whole process will be observed by agents of the candidates.
About 71,252 ordinary voters would be voting in 130 voting channels in 25 polling stations this Thursday.
A total of 549 policemen, military personnel and their spouses already voted on May 3.
It is a four-corner fight for the Permatang Pauh parliamentary seat between PKR’s Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, BN’s Suhaimi Sabudin, PRM’s Azman Shah Othman and independent Salleh Isahak.
