LANGKAWI (May 9): Pakatan Harapan chairman Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad does not dismiss the possibility that the Election Commission (EC) had intentionally denied voters who were waiting to vote from casting their votes.

There were many issues faced by voters with the EC in several polling stations in the country, he told reporters in Langkawi, where he is the candidate for the Parliamentary seat.

“We do not want to make any allegations but there is a possibility of EC intentionally delaying voters because the EC was involved in stopping voters from voting, and from the beginning, EC changed and amended the voters’ lists, conducted the redelineation, and attempted to ban the Opposition parties.

“This also includes the disqualification of Pakatan candidates. So today if they intentionally delayed the voters, we cannot say that this (intentional delay) cannot happen, it could happen,” he added.

He contended that the EC does not allow time extension but that they should know that when they noticed that some 20,000 people attended Pakatan rallies, more polling centres should be set up to deal with the large number of registered voters.

Mahathir added that he learnt that certain places saw 80% to 90% voter turnout but other places had a lower figure. This includes Langkawi, where only 60% of the registered voters turned out to vote, which according to Mahathir indicated  that the voting time was insufficient.

According to reports throughout the day, some voters learnt that some other people had voted in their name, their ballot papers failed to have the EC stamp on them,  and some were turned away over their dressing.

“All this is not the right and clean way to conduct an election. We learnt that Barisan Nasional had been involved in money politics. There are candidates who had so much money remaining to hand out but did not manage to give all,” claimed Mahathir.

“They were not involved in proper campaigning where they explain to people about why they should be voted.

“In fact, just yesterday, BN had a star-studded concert in Kuah around the same time as the Pakatan ceramah where I spoke,” he said.