PRESS
STATEMENT
In
Kota Kinabalu, 10 June 1998
HENRYNUS
: JUSTIFY THE 20 PERCENT INCREASE IN 1994 VOTERS REGISTRATION
KOTA
KINABALU – Member of Parliament for Kinabalu, Henrynus Amin,
in a statement today asked the Election Commission to justify the
20 percent increase of registerd voters in Sabah since 1994.
He
said the 100,000 increase from 600,000 in 1994 is a shocking development
in Sabah’s political scene given its small population of 1.5 million
minus the 500,00 or so foreigners recently legalized by the current
BN administration under the amnesty program.
Henrynus
was commenting on the statement by the Chairman of the Election
Commission, Datuk Harun Din, who had disclosed that there were now
697,336 eligible voters in Sabah, an increase of almost 100,000
from 598,312 in 1994.
Henrynus
said the huge increase raises serious questions as to the validity
of the electoral roll and that there have been mounting calls for
more government accountability and transparency.
He
said public confidence is now at an all time low and said that there
should be a full and immediate enquiry by the Federal Government
in order to dispel public fears and suspicion.
He
said the issue of faked identity cards and phantom voters were old
issues raised by Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) since its inception in
1985.
"Unfortunately,
there is yet any concrete proof that the Federal authorities have
acted conclusively to settle the issue of phantom voters once and
for all," he lamented.
He
said with about 700,00 foreigners in Sabah out of a combined population
of 2 million, there are now roughly one foreigner for every three
Sabahans walking down the streets.
"I
am puzzle as to why the Federal authorities continue to fail to
monitor their movement and identify their whereabouts?" he asked.
He
said he is even more concerned that these foreigners were now being
legalized and given jobs at the expense of national security.
"Not
only that the security of the state is at stake, now the intergrity
of the country is being challenged by these foreign elements," he
said.
He
claimed that with about 700,000 eligible voters out of the 1.5 million
local population, there seem to be an equal number of adult Sabahans
with those under 21 years old.
"Is
it logical to have one children for every adult in the street or
is there sometyhing wrong with the statistics?" he asked.
He
said given Sabah’s young population, there ought to be proportionally
more children and less adults.
"The
fact that Sabah seems to have an ageing population suggest that
the population increase was almost certainly due to the influx of
foreigners who have since obtained their Malaysian identity cards
and are now duly registered as voters.
According
to Henrynus there had been a sudden surge of adult applicants as
voters in the last ten years which were largely concentrated in
the east coast of Sabah.
"Just
look at some details of certain identity cards registered as voters.
They were mostly from Tawau, used "surat akuan" instead of their
birth certificates to obtain their identity cards, frequently acquired
them between the age of 26 and 40 years old and had their first
registration as voters in coastal towns," he said.
Henrynus
said he suspected that these were mostly foreigners of Indonesian
and Filipino descent working in plantations.
He
said there had been documented cases in the past of these foreigners
being arrested for possession of false identity cards and later
confessed to police to have voted in previous elections.
He
said if indeed these confessions were true, then these are only
the tip of an iceberg.
"I
am yet to see those responsible especially organized syndicates
be arrested and charged in court," he said.
Meanwhile,
Henrynus said he regret that the Federal Government had rejected
his query on the status of certain names he suspected to be foreigners
registered in the electoral roll.
He
said he has some records of dubious names registered as voters in
the Sabah electoral roll but the Federal government had refused
to furnish information as to the status of these names when asked
in parliament recently.
"I
received a written reply from the Prime Minister’s department telling
me that the information I asked from them were official secret and
therefore can not be given," he said.
"What
is so secret about enquiring the citizenship status of certain people
suspected to be foreigners registered as voters?" he asked.
"Am
I not entitle to these privilege informations as a Member of Parliament
or are they trying to hide the truth from the public?" he asked
|
