DAP Socialist Youth (DAPSY) national chief, Wong Kah Woh, has urged the Election Commission (EC) to explain the sudden ‘fishy’ surge of newly registered voters in the third quarter of 2016.

Wong said the latest EC update revealed an astounding 501,799 new Malaysian voters, which is a five-fold increase compared to the 2016 first and second quarter figures of 93,530 and 88,078 figure respectively.

“As of this mid-year, we know about four million Malaysians have not registered as voters. There is some fishy practice by the EC whereby the latest statistics for the registration of new voters in third quarter of 2016 have increased tremendously by five times. We urge the EC to review who are the bodies or persons responsible in registering these 501,799 voters,” said Wong.

“Yes, we are all for the active registration of voters and high increase of the registration of voters but, looking at the trend in the past one or two years, the figure of 501,799 has cast a big doubt as to where all these new voters have come from,” he emphasized.

The DAPSY national chief pointed out that there were no apparent initiatives made by EC to raise the awareness of registering for voting and questioned whether the commission is helping certain quarters, such as the Village Development and Security Committees (JKKK) and government supported NGOs to achieve a target to win the next general election.

“We hope the EC can be transparent on this issue and give an explanation and clarification over the sudden increase. Of course, we know that in the third quarter registration, a lot of the voters feel the need to register for voting but the increased amount has cast a reasonable doubt,” said Wong,

“After 2013, all political parties are no longer allowed to assist EC in registering new voters, so that is a big problem for us as we cannot help our voters to register. When political parties are actually deprived of the rights to register voters and we have not seen active participation or movement by EC in doing this exercise, then where are these new voters coming from? Wong asked.

“We wouldn’t know if there are some wrongdoings in the voter registration exercise,” he added.

Wong also called for the government to implement the automatic registration system for eligible Malaysians.

“Those who are already 21 years old and above will be automatically registered and this would solve the matter once and for all. We do not really need to look for the four million people to register for votes,” he said.

“Whether they turn up to vote is another issue but since JPN (National Registration Department) and EC’s system is actually connected, I think it wouldn’t take such a huge cost for EC to implement.

“The whole issue is whether EC or the current government has the political will to get the automatic registration for new voters implemented to automatically register new voters,” he concluded.

Earlier on during the interview, Wong announced that DAPSY has chosen Sabah to host its National Leadership Retreat in 2017.

The retreat is planned for June and 30 DAPSY national executive council members are expected to attend the platform for its Sabah young members to formulate ideas in order to win the next general election.

According to Wong, DAP acknowledged that there are 72% of the population in Sabah under the age of 40 and reiterated that a new deal is needed for the youths in Malaysia.

Source:
courtesy of THE BORNEO POST

by The Borneo Post

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