SHAH ALAM, 3 Nov: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's denial of claims that 40,000 Bangladeshis voted in the last general election is just a ploy to avoid answering allegations of election fraud.
The Co-Chairman of Bersih 2.0, Datuk S.Ambiga, said that she is very sceptical because the issue keeps coming up.
"I think is it a red herring so that they don’t have to answer all other allegations of electoral fraud which are backed by evidence," she said.
She said this to Malaysiakini when responding to Najib’s interview on CNN, which was published online on Oct 31.
In the interview, Najib was asked to comment on “allegations of fraud, buying votes, double-voting, phantom voters, (and) issues of gerrymandering”.
Najib replied that the allegations are “by and large… totally unfounded”, and then pointed to the allegation that 40,000 Bangladeshis were ferried in to vote as an example, stressing that the allegation was never proven.
The matter has also been raised several times over the past week - when Najib tabled the Budget 2014 on 25 October and when he inaugurated the Gerakan National Delegates’ Conference on 26 October.
“He didn’t answer any other allegations of fraud that (CNN interviewer Christiane Amanpour) mentioned, like vote buying and gerrymandering,” Ambiga noted.
