Hiew's remarks uncalled for, say Election panel
Published on: Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Kota Kinabalu: DAP Member of Parliament, Hiew King Cheu's remarks on the Kinabatangan voting-age population is uncalled for, said State Election Commission Director, Datuk Md. Idrus Ismail.He said the figures given by the Family and Community Development Ministry's Secretary General Dato' Dr. Noorul Ainur Mohd Nur recently were not accurate, as she missed out the statistics for Kg Tongot, which is under Kinabatangan."There are actually a total of 59,195 locals in Kinabatangan including Kg. Tongot, a total of 36,192 being from Tongot itself," he said, adding that the high number of foreigners in the district is not alarming, as they are involved in the agriculture sector.ADVERTISEMENT "About 20,000 of the population comes from Kinabatangan, and the rest foreigners," he said."So, this allegation made by Hiew, he said, is uncalled for," Idrus said.Earlier, Hiew had said in a statement that it is hard to believe that the voting-age in Kinabatangan district accounted for 68 per cent of the total population in 2010.He said based on the figures given by Noorul, there were only 32, 638 locals in the district, which means the registered voters of 22,000 people represent about 68 per cent of the population.ADVERTISEMENT "It is not possible for a constituency to have 68 per cent of people as voters," he had stated and urged the relevant parties to come up with an explanation.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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In this respect, Idrus said the allegation that there were foreigners registered as voters in the district is not true.
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He said foreigners working in the agriculture sector such as in oil palm estates there are also not surprising, as not many locals want to work in these sectors.