"The process was clearly full of fraudulence. Take the case of the Senadin seat where the Barisan Nasional won by 58 votes and the EC refused a recount. This is unheard of in the country," he said.
"Azmin Ali (PKR deputy president and party election director) is unwell, otherwise he could testify how he had to negotiate every step of the way to get the names of the counting agents.
"The EC wanted to know where the names came from. Before, no such questions were asked," said Anwar, pointing out that the EC officials made things difficult for the opposition.
He said the timing and voting for postal votes also worked against the opposition.
On the coming parliamentary election, the opposition leader said that PKR and Pakatan Rakyat had learnt a lot from the state election.
"We will not allow the Barisan Nasional (BN) to cheat as it did in the Sarawak election. We will insist on international teams to monitor our election.
"We will insist on international media to be present and invite international MPs to come and observe the election throughout the country.
"We must ensure that the electoral process is clean," said Anwar, pointing out that in many countries civil strife and disasters occur because of fraudulent electoral processes.
"We should not allow this to happen. We won't condone vote buying and using the media to continue sacrilegious attacks on PKR without giving us an opportunity to defend ourselves," he said.
Unfair tactics
Anwar also questioned why Bersih leaders like Ambiga Sreenevasan were not allowed to enter Sarawak on the eve of polling.
"Is it because they want to play 'kotor' (dirty)?" he asked.
Anwar also warned members and supporters of the opposition coalition that they should be well equipped to counter the BN's unfair tactics in the coming general election.
"Knowing what has happened in Sarawak, we must use phones and videos to take photographs of every transaction. This we have learnt," he said.
On the state election, Anwar said that generally PKR's performance was very good in view of the fact that the party was given the most difficult and most remote constituencies.
The party won the three seats of Batu Lintang, Krian and Ba'Kelalan.
"Looking at the election results, the choice and decisions by Sarawakians including the Ibans showed that they preferred PKR candidates from among the opposition parties.
"These inaccessible areas and the short campaign period hindered our efforts to disseminate our messages," he said.
Meanwhile, Baru Bian, the state PKR chief, who was present, said that the party was looking into evidence of electoral malpractices in several areas.
"After the results have been gazetted, we will file and take action accordingly. We have a very strong case of electoral malpractice in Senadin," he said.
Posted by Joseph Tawie on April 25, 2011.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device via Vodafone-Celcom Mobile.
