I would not quarrel with the comment by the Election Commission chairman Datuk Omar Mohd Hashim that last Saturday was "the most uneventful nomination day", as the commission received no reports of disturbances in any of the nomination centres.
However, I hope his comment that the incident-free nominations "reflected the maturity of society in carrying out an important task responsibly" would not mean the Election Commission would overlook its even greater responsibility to ensure a trouble-free general election up to Polling Day.
In this regard, the Election Commission cannot close its eyes to the irresponsible "fear and scare" political advertisements placed by the Barisan Nasional in the various language newspapers in the past two days, which if not stopped, would create an atmosphere of fear and insecurity to obstruct the 9.6 million voters from freely and fairly exercise their voting right.
I call on the Election Commission to seek an urgent meeting with Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad as Barisan Nasional Chairman and not as caretaker Prime Minister to ask that the Barisan Nasional should immediately stop its irresponsible, inflammatory and incendiary political advertisements and cancel all such "fear and scare" political advertisements so as not to create an atmosphere of fear and insecurity which would make the tenth general election the dirtiest in the nation’s history.
(22/11/99)