PETALING JAYA: Ong Kian Ming has accused Umno of having a racial agenda in filing objections to registration of new voters.
Pointing to data obtained from the Election Commission (EC) on the objections made last year, the Serdang MP said Umno are making spurious objections to young people being registered as voters, especially in Selangor.
“From Quarter 1 to Q3 2016, a total of 4,694 objections were received by the EC, out of which 4,427 or 94% were objections filed in Selangor,” Ong said.
He added that an analysis of the objections from Q1 to Q3 2016 in Selangor also shows two distinct trends.
“Firstly, out of the 36 seats which have objections, 30 or 86% were in seats which were contested by Umno in the 2013 general election (GE13).
“Secondly, of the 4427 objections in Selangor, 92.8% were Chinese voters, 5.8% were Indian voters and 1.2% were Malay voters,” he said, adding that the trend continued in the period October to December last year as well.
According to Ong, during the last quarter, the statistics show that a total of 2,550 objections were lodged in Selangor in 24 state seats.
“Out of the 24 state seats, 20 or 83% were seats contested by Umno in the last general election (GE13). Out of the 2,550 voters being objected to, 79.1% were Chinese voters, 6.3% were Indian voters and 14.2% were Malay voters.”
Ong, who is also DAP election strategist, said that the opposition were not against the right to file objections against voters but these objections have to be filed based on solid grounds.
“Our colleagues in Johor filed objections based on investigation that voters were being registered en masse in shop houses and in addresses which they do not live in.
“However, in the case of Selangor, objections were made on spurious grounds such as ‘the address of the voter cannot be found’ or ‘the voter is not known by the local residents” when in fact, the objector has never visited the voter at his or her registered address.”
He added that there is anecdotal evidence that the objections in Selangor are being filed by Umno members and Umno linked entities.
Ong called for the EC to put a stop to these baseless objections, which could deprive thousands of young Malaysians from exercising their constitutional right to vote in the next general election (GE14).