Malaysian opposition protests against 'electoral frauds'

Malaysian opposition held a large rally on Wednesday to protest against the "electoral frauds" which its leaders said had "stolen" their victory in Malaysia's most closely run general election. Tens of thousands of opposition supporters, many wearing black, gathered at a stadium near Kuala Lumpur at the evening despite the shower, to express their dissatisfaction towards the results of Sunday's general election. Police have said the rally was illegal. Opposition leader and former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has refused to accept defeat in the election, which saw the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional retained power with a narrower majority. Barisan lost the popular votes but got 60 percent of the seats in the parliament. Anwar said he was gathering evidence to prove irregularities in a number of seats, which he said would be enough to turn around the whole election results. Barisan chairman and Prime Minister Najib Razak on Tuesday slammed the opposition on "lying" to voters on the electoral frauds allegation, including that the ruling coalition was bringing in tens of thousands of foreign workers to rig the ballots. He said the opposition had so far failed to put forward evidences. A widely circulated allegation said the electricity of a polling center was cut off when an opposition candidate was leading in the tallying. According to the rumour, extra ballot boxes were "found" when the power backed on and the election result was turned around. However, the rumour was proved untrue by those at the scene. Wan Saiful Wan Jan, CEO of Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs, a think tank that observed the election, urged voters on Wednesday to accept the polling result though it was "only partially free and not fair" while pushing for electoral reform. Ramon Navaratnam, president of Centre for Public and Policy Studies, another think tank, was quoted by an online news portal as saying that the election result was "credible" as no proof of fraud were found.