PETALING JAYA: DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang chided the Election Commission (EC) for saying the party was “disrespectful” and “rude” during the tallying of the Sibu by-election results.
“As far as DAP is concerned, we were very civil,” he told FMT, in response to EC deputy chief Wan Ahmad Wan Omar’s statement in Malay-daily Utusan Malaysia today.
Lim stressed that DAP was only aiming for a free and just election and said that the party has been fully cooperating with the EC to ensure such objective being achieved.
Wan Ahmad was quoted as saying that the opposition party was “rude” and “disrespectful” to the EC and accused them of obstructing their workers during the tallying of the postal votes. He claimed that the DAP leaders and supporters, including the winning candidate Wong Ho Leng had accused the EC of being deliberately slow in their vote counting.
Wan Ahmad also said commission workers who were bringing in the ballot boxes to the tally centre were heckled and booed at by DAP supporters.
The controversy started when DAP leaders questioned the delay by the EC in announcing the result which was initially to be made by 9pm. Instead, it was made about two hours later.
“They said that our workers were deliberately slow in counting the votes. Actually, they (DAP) were the ones who had caused the delay,” Wan Ahmad was quoted as saying.
However, Lim today justified the party’s action as the EC had “a displayed gross blunder” by delaying the announcement for more than two hours.
“They held back the result for more than two hours and they will have to explain the delay…we were suspicious. We could not ignore it and keep quiet about it,” he said.
EC mulls new rule
Then EC came under intense scrutiny by Pakatan Rakyat leaders and supporters during the vote counting as they sensed that the DAP was edging towards a historic victory.
When the result was finally announced, DAP’s Wong Ho Leng defeated BN’s Robert Lau with a slim majority of 398-vote.
Wan Ahmad also was quoted as saying that the commission is mulling a new rule which will prevent such an incident like the one in Sibu from happening again.
This, he said, will be discussed at the by-electing post-mortem meeting that will be held next week.
Responding to this, Lim countered that whatever new rule the EC comes up with must show “fairness, impartiality and independence”.
“If not, the public will lose confidence in the integrity and the professionalism of the EC,” he said.