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Video shows alleged vote-rigging in Malaysia
Election authorities are still assessing the video in question.
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Samples of five-colored ballot papers are being displayed at the General Elections Commission's office. JP/Dhoni Setiawan (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
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video of people raiding an empty store in Selangor, Malaysia, and unpacking several bags containing marked ballots in favor of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and running mate Ma’ruf Amin circulated on social media on Thursday.
The video shows people holding up the ballots and claiming that they had been marked in favor of Jokowi and Ma’ruf in the presidential election and a NasDem Party legislative candidate.
“We demand that the KPU [General Elections Commission] postpone all [election] affairs in Malaysia until the 14th, otherwise we will occupy the KBRI [Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur],” one of the people in the video said.
Malaysia-based voters are scheduled to cast their ballots on Sunday.
NasDem and the Jokowi-Ma'ruf campaign team have denied the accusations.
The Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) has received the report and verified the validity of the video.
On Thursday, Bawaslu commissioner Fritz Edward Siregar said in Jakarta that the agency had received reports about alleged vote-rigging from its Kuala Lumpur chapter, without elaborating on the details.
He added that the agency had encouraged the KPU to assess the Kuala Lumpur chapter of the election committee and postpone the voting process in Malaysia.
Separately, KPU commissioner Ilham Saputra said his team was still assessing the video in question.
“We’re assessing the situation in Malaysia. We’ve asked the election committee there to check it out.”
He added that if the KPU found evidence that the Selangor chapter was responsible for alleged vote-rigging the commission would take action against it.
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politician Masinton Pasaribu, who is running as a legislative candidate for Central Jakarta, South Jakarta, and overseas, suggested that the alleged vote-rigging might be true but denied that the Jokowi camp was involved.
He claimed that the ballots were discovered during a raid and not by the election authorities in Malaysia.
"The people who were involved in the raid were from 02 [Prabowo's camp], including the Democratic Party," Masinton said.
He claimed that vote-rigging in Malaysia was run by a syndicate and have been rampant in every election.
"They pay 15 Malaysian ringgit [US$3.64] for each ballot," Masinton said.
The Prabowo-Sandiaga camp was quick to deny the incumbent camp's accusations, saying it had also urged the KPU to reschedule voting day in Malaysia pending an assessment of the incident.
"We sent a letter to the KPU to postpone the voting process until the commission gives us an explanation on how many ballots are deemed problematic," campaign team official Sufmi Dasco Ahmad said.
He added that the camp would send officials to Malaysia to directly check out the situation.
There are 255 polling stations spread across Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, Selangor, Perak, Kuala Trengganu and Kelantan, with a total of 985,216 registered voters. (swd)
