MIC VP ELECTIONS - Sothinathan, Saravanan and Balakrishnan Win in Recount Fiasco

S. Sothinathan (far left), M. Saravanan and S. Balakrishnan

MALACCA: The tallying of the votes for the three vice presidents continued until Sunday morning, with former MIC vice president Datuk S. Sothinathan winning the first vice president post by a single vote.

Sothinathan, who is a former deputy minister, received 717 votes, to register a single vote win over incumbent Datuk M. Saravanan.

Johor Baru MIC division chairman Datuk S. Balakrishnan obtained 683 votes while MIC treasurer Datuk Jaspal Singh came out fourth with 670 votes.

Former MIC Youth chief Datuk S.A. Vigneswaran got 573 votes while Datuk T. Mohan got 530 votes with incumbent Datuk S.K. Devamany getting 332 votes and James Selvaraj 52 votes.

There has been no formal announcement yet but it was confirmed after three vice presidents names were announced during the ceremony to welcome Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak for the assembly.

MIC election committee chairman Tan Sri K Kumaran announced late Saturday that the official announcement for the vice presidents was delayed as there has been a request for a recount for all the eight candidates.

The announcement was delayed as there were five recounts because there was a difference of four votes between Balakrishnan and Jaspal Singh.

Initially Jaspal was in the lead with a four vote majority over Balakrishnan but in the third recount, Balakrishnan became third with 27 votes.

Saravanan who initially lost by eight votes requested for a recount all the votes for all candidates and the counting started at about 11pm.

After six hours, Sothinathan was declared as the first vice president followed by Saravanan and Balakrishnan.

But one of the vice president candidates have expressed unhappiness with the tallying of the votes.

"After the first counting, a total of 4,032 votes or 1,346 ballot papers were tallied but accepted by all the eight vice president candidates.

"But Balakishnan requested a second recount, he had an extra 27 votes and there were 1, 423 ballot papers. Where did the 77 extra ballot papers come from." he asked in a text message to division chairman.

In the sms, the candidate said he was unable to accept the election results as the ballot papers could have been put into the ballot box by certain quarters.

"There must be a re-election or the first result which was accepted by all candidates should be maintained," he said.

Mohan said that he accepted the results and would continue to serve the community.

Jaspal said that he was disappointed but would bring it up with the party leadership.

He however refused to elaborate.

The Star

MALACCA: The 67th MIC annual general assembly kicked off in this historical city with results of the internal polls to pick three vice presidents and 23 central working committee members expected to be out later part of the evening.

The assembly this morning saw party secretary general giving his opening speech, welcoming all the delegates and wishing the vice-president and central working committee (CWC) candidates best luck.

This was followed by MIC treasure general Jaspal Singh tabling the MIC annual accounts.

The 1,452 delegates who were eligible to vote at the polls have began casting their ballots.

Party officials speaking to FMT said the voting process is expected to take four to five hours.

“Counting of the votes will be the hard part with so many candidates. We will start with the central working committee first and only then the vice-president ballots,” an official said.

Eight candidates are vying for the three vice-presidents post while a whopping 88 candidates will fight it out for the 23 central working committee seats.

Campaigning was in full swing at the presidential dinner last night for the delegates and this morning with candidates making their pitch on why they should be elected.

A total of 1452 delegates will be eligible to vote in the polls, comprising 1,341 division delegates, 41 CWC delegates, 38 Youth delegates and 38 Wanita wing delegates.

KP Samy trashes Tamil Nesan

Meanwhile, central working committee candidate KP Samy had a tiff with former CWC member Vell Paari, who is also son of former president S Samy Vellu, for dumping Tamil Nesan newspapers, a Tamil vernacular daily, into the trash bin.

The incident occured at about 7am, today, when the paper was being distributed free to all delegates attending the assembly in front of the Equatorial Hotel.

Samy was unhappy with allegations, by the newspaper, that he used caste politics to gain votes at the polls.

Samy, who was unhappy seeing the paper distributed for free, took three bundles of the newspaper and dumped into a nearby garbage bin.

This incident irked Paari, who is also the newspaper’s managing director. There was a verbal clash between the two leaders at the lobby of the hotel.

“If he (Samy) did not agree with the report, then he should sue us. What right does he have to throw the papers away?,” Paari told FMT when asked later about the incident.

Samy, it is learnt, returned the papers which he threw in the bin back to the newspaper distributors.

The voting process is still on-going and media have been barred from recording the voting process.

FMT Today