You have made Malaysia proud!
Now I have a question to Najib!
Will you still keep all your by-election promise or will you now abandon all the 18,447 people who voted for you?!
10.55 pm: Its official! DAP won by a very slim majority of 398!
OFFICIAL FIGURES!
DAP - 18,845
BN - 18,447
Ind -232
Majority - 398
Official postal votes BN 2323,
DAP 70,
Ind 36.
Total ballots issued: 2827.
Rejected: 208.
Unreturned: 190
10.35pm: It appears that there was some minor dispute over the postal ballots. However, it is learnt that the Election Commission will be announcing the result soon.
10.15pm: At the main tally centre in Dewan Suarah, two SUPP officials are meeting with returning officer Wong See Meng. It is believed that they are discussing about the delay in the announcing of postal vote results. They are later joined by DAP officials Ng Wei Aik, Lim Lip Eng and Ronnie Liu.
It is still raining in Sibu. The rain began about two hours ago. Supporters from both sides, many of them holding umbrellas, are waiting calmly outside Dewan Suarah.
10.10pm: Election Commission chief Abdul Aziz Yusof tells Malaysiakini in an SMS message that the postal ballots Form 15 is on its way to the main tally centre in Dewan Suarah.
"EC is waiting for the official postal ballot result," he says. Meanwhile, EC deputy chief Wan Ahmad Wan Omar says the commission will explain the delay soon.
"I'll explain after we announce the result shortly," he tells Malaysiakini.
10.09pm: All top DAP leaders are waiting at Wisma Sanyan, where the postal ballots were counted.Lim Guan Eng tells Malaysiakini that he is worried “something suspicious could be going on” and he hopes that the Election Commission officials can release the Form 15, a document which certifies the final result of the postal ballots.
Should it be true that BN has won the postal votes by a margin of 2,300, then DAP will be declared the winner of the Sibu by-election with a tissue-thin majority of 300 votes.It is confirmed that Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin has returned to Kuala Lumpur.
There is no movement at the main tally centre in Dewan Suarah in Sibu. The official tally still indicates that 16 boxes, including the postal votes, are yet to be sent to be included in the final result.
9.50pm: DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang questions the hold-up in the Election Commission's announcement of the 2,571 postal ballots.
"The postal ballot counting started at 5.30pm and finished at 8.30pm."
He asks why there is more than an hour delay in the announcement of results.
"Up to some trick?" he wonders aloud.
9.35pm: The counting of postal votes has ended. However, DAP scrutineers are unable to get Form 15 - the official tally signed by the returning officer.
It is understood that BN has won 2,300 out of a total 2,571 postal votes. This will translate into a DAP victory with a margin of 300 votes.
DAP candidate Wong Ho Leng refuses to claim victory as yet."I don't want comment. Please wait for the official announcement," he told Malaysiakini.
9.24pm: The final result may not be announced anytime soon. The 2,571 postal votes are still being counted. All DAP leaders leave the party's operations room in Sibu for Wisma Sanyan where the postal votes are being tallied.
DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang wants to know what is holding up the Election Commission from announcing the by-election result.
9.21pm: Election Commission chief Abdul Aziz Yusof sends a SMS message to Malaysiakini saying that the voter turnout "could be more than 60 percent".
Malaysiakini has earlier asked him to confirm whether the voter turnout was 59.86% as announced by the EC a few hours ago.
9.10pm: Penang Chief Minister and DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng and other party leaders are set to leave the party's operations room in Sibu.
But instead of going to main tally centre at Dewan Suarah, they plan to go to Wisma Sanyan, where the postal votes are being counted.
8.57pm: According to the latest unofficial tally, BN has reduced DAP's lead down to 2,590 votes. A total of 109 out of 110 polling streams have been counted thus far.
DAP - 18,570
BN - 15,980
Ind - 201
Majority - 2,590
7.40pm: According to the latest unofficial tally, DAP's lead breaks the 3,000 mark for the first time - it is now 3,022 votes. About 90.5% of votes have been counted so far.
DAP - 16,178BN - 13,156Ind - 135Majority - 3,022
7.30pm: According to the latest unofficial tally, DAP has again increased its lead to 2,817 votes. About 87% of votes have been counted so far.DAP - 15,655
BN - 12,838
Ind - 132
Majority - 2,817
The 2,571 postal votes are now being counted!
In the 2008 general elections, SUPP won 94% of this postal votes.
Several glaring postal voting discrepancies detected yesterday at the Sibu by-election has again raised questions about the credibility of the postal voting process.
DAP Youth chief Anthony Loke (centre in photo) today demanded explanations from the Election Commission (EC) on three separate issues detected by party polling agents at various postal voting centres.
At 5.45pm, DAP candidate Wong Ho Leng was at the Sibu EC office to post his objections over the postal voting process.
This was followed by a huge row between Wong, BN candidate Robert Lau and EC deputy chief Wan Ahmad Wan Omar over the matter.
Loke said the most serious discrepancy was that several codes (police or army personnel voter-groupings) saw returned ballots in excess of the number that were issued on May 12.
He identified Code 708 (police) where six ballots were distributed, and 24 returned. Code 429 (army) saw 160 ballots issued and 161 returned. For Code 43 (army), 47 were issued and 67 returned.
“For the postal voting process to be legitimate, even a single vote cannot be exceeded. In this case, we are talking about a 39-vote difference,” said Loke, who is Rasah MP.
Taking ballots home The second discrepancy, noted Loke, involved the 290 ballots that were issued to EC workers who applied to be postal voters because they were working on polling day.
Loke said that about 200 of such voters did not vote on the same day (May 12) and went home with their ballots, which he argued could then be “sold”.
“If taken out of the polling centres, ballots becomes a commodity to be sold. Now, no one will know who actually marked those ballots that were issued,” he said.
Loke added that there were also dubious individuals among the 200-odd voters who returned their ballots yesterday, some of whom refused to be identified by party scrutineers.“One person looked more like a VCD seller than an EC worker (left).
He had some young people with him. Our people tried to check their ICs but they all claim that they forgot to carry it with them,” he said.
Reforms overdueThe third discrepancy detected by DAP was that out of the 290 postal voters who were EC workers, two were not even in the electoral roll.
“When we demanded for their IC, they promptly left,” he said.Loke said the DAP decided to highlight these issues to show that there is a need for a total reform of the postal voting process, which is a long standing issue because the process is riddled with flaws and open to abuse and manipulation.
“But for now, we demand a thorough explanation from the EC,” he said.He also questioned why the EC permitted voters to bring their ballots home for several days instead of marking and casting them on the spot.
Source from Malaysiakini
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