KUALA LUMPUR, May 24 — Khairy Jamaluddin has defended the manner in which Elections 2013 was conducted, arguing in a letter to international current affairs magazine The Economist that there was not “one shred of evidence” of fraud in the polls.
The newly-appointed sports minister also took a swipe at Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, by accusing the opposition leader of not accepting the results because “of his own personal, lifelong ambition to become prime minister.”
“Allegations that foreign nationals were paid as ‘phantom voters’ have proved to be false, with not even one recorded case on polling day. All votes were cast and counted in front of representatives from all the contesting parties who signed off on the results.
“If any evidence of fraud does emerge the government encourages the relevant party to file an election petition in the courts to allow due process to take course.”
Khairy’s (picture) letter to The Economist was in response to a scathing report last week in the magazine of Malaysia’s elections.
The Umno Youth leader has been given the task of improving the Barisan Nasional (BN) government’s image abroad and his first job recently was to soft pedal the angry reaction by Umno politicians towards Chinese Malaysians in the aftermath of GE13.
In its reports, The Economist noted that national reconciliation appears a distant dream post-Election 2013 for a country scarred by the “nasty, divisive” electoral campaign led by Umno and BN in the rural heartlands.
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/khairy-says-not-one-shred-of-evidence-to-suggest-polls-fraud/
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/khairy-says-not-one-shred-of-evidence-to-suggest-polls-fraud/
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