SUBANG JAYA, 21 Sept: Today, about eight witnesses came forward to testify in front of the panel on the third of the 13th General Election (GE-13) People’s Tribunal here at the Empire Hotel.
The first witness, the Village Head of Kampung Tual Kuala Lipis, Pahang, Yok En warmed up the atmosphere when he admitted at the natives of the area were ‘forced’ to not vote any other party apart from Umno-BN in the election.
He said that the villagers were promised RM20 is they voted for BN candidates.
“Not all villagers who voted received the incentive even though they (BN) had promised,” he said.
Confirming the matter, another witness from the same area known as Sani said that if the natives did not vote BN, the police would arrest and issue summons to them.
Chemistry expert, Steven Ng then revealed that the indelible ink used in the GE-13 in May only contained one percent of silver nitrate.
He said that indelible ink generally used in elections contain between 10 to 18 percent of dissolved silver nitrate which will leave a black stain and last for several days.
Analyst, Steven Choong who explained voting procedures during the election is of the opinion that the early voting ballot boxes should not have been kept at police stations and should have been put under the custody of enforcement officials.
The afternoon session saw the revelation from two members of the online media portals, Malaysia Kini and Free Malaysia Today, on Umno-BN’s mistake of using government machinery during the campaign period in the Batu and Tebrau Parliaments.
It was then followed by a video presentation which lasted about 30 minutes featuring an interview with an academic from the University of Malaya, Professor Edmund Terence Gomez, who described the 10-minute period given to political parties to present the election manifesto through a radio broadcast is an act of injustice.
The Executive Officer of the Centre of Independent Journalists (CIJ), Masjaliza Hamzah presented studies on a number of issues faced by journalists and editors during the election.
She said that most of the journalists working in the mainstream media are not given the freedom to write negative articles on Umno-BN.
Another witness, Professor Zaharom Nain said that the news coverage by the mainstream media was more biased compared to online portals that featured a balance of news highlighting both Umno-BN and Pakatan Rakyat (PR).
