KUCHING: Sri Aman independent candidate Donald Lawan warns that should anything happen to his election posters, his detractors stand accused.
“I cannot but conclude that should anything be done to my posters or any untoward incident, the authorities should know whom to look for – none other than Alex Libau (who had claimed to be a tuai rumah) and his group of Masir Kujat’s supporters,” he said in a statement yesterday.
Masir is the Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate for Sri Aman who is being challenged by three other candidates: Lawan, Wilfred Landong of Sarawak Workers Party (SWP) and Nicholas Mujah from Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR).
Lawan in a press statement released yesterday warned that no one should disturb his election posters as the relevant authorities had said they were not against any law.
Prior to this, BN supporters were complaining that the independent candidate was displaying BN logos on his campaign posters distributed in the constituency, and his rival had asked to have them taken down as they could confuse voters.
“There is no question of my posters being taken down by the Election Commission (EC) as state director Datu Takun Sunggah has made it crystal clear, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that my posters were not against the commission’s rules and regulations.
“Furthermore, the state police media relations officer for the polls, ACP Azam Abdul Hamid has said police would leave the action of removing the posters to the commission,” he disclosed.
According to Lawan, threatening words had been directed at him over the posters issue so he regarded his news release as a report for EC and the police to take action.
Lawan said he was puzzled when his office received a call from Sri Aman EC office from an individual Thomas Geoffrey asking his election agent to go to Balai Ringin at noon yesterday to take down his posters.
“This is contradictory, especially after the state EC director had publicly said in the newspapers that my poster was not an offence.
“In spite of what Datu Takun said, the EC in Sri Aman still thinks it is an offence so they are over-riding the decision of their boss,” he said. #myvote13 #ge13