Press Release
7 March 2008
The Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (BERSIH) calls on all Malaysians who are angry with the Election Commission’s (EC) failure to ensure the integrity of elections in Malaysia to register their concerns through the ballot box on polling day as well as support a signature campaign for a Royal Commission on Electoral Reform (RCER).
BERSIH strongly criticizes the EC Chairman Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman for suggesting that Malaysians who wants clean and fair elections were responsible for his house being splashed with red paint early yesterday.
BERSIH condemns all acts of violence or intimidation by any party, and stresses that such baseless accusations are being used by Tan Sri Rashid to divert attention from the real issues – the numerous blunders and broken promises made by the EC to the Malaysian people.
BERSIH warns the public to be wary of media smear/spin and fear-mongering campaigns, such as the offensive launched by the mainstream media on opposition parties in 1990 and 1999.
BERSIH calls upon all concerned Malaysians to support and spread the word for a Royal Commission on Electoral Reform (RCER) after the General Election. The online version is available at http://www.petitiononline.com/RCER2008/petition.html .
BERSIH also urges Malaysians to record and document any instances of election offences — such as phantom voting, multiple voting, ballot stuffing, bribery, intimidation, treating — and file such complaints so that BERSIH may draw upon this bank of information in its mission to establish the RCER.
As the EC’s U-turn on indelible ink has completely obliterated whatever scrap of public confidence it still had prior to this week, the establishment of the RCER is now imperative for post-election Malaysia.