Unreturned postal ballots: "Political parties" or "opposition parties"?

Election Commission Chairman Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman came out with a particular piece of evidence obtained through the EC's internal probe into "irregularities" in the recent elections. It concerns 67,000 postal votes not returned to the EC. TheSun, New Straits Times, and The Star carried the story on 14 April. The Star, however, gave a different picture from that of the other two papers.

Both the NST and theSun (as well as Malaysiakini on 13 April for that matter) reported that Rashid alleged that some political parties might have used their candidates' agents to collect unreturned ballots, marked "X" against the party's symbol, and then claimed after the election that votes in their favour were removed from the ballot box.

The operative words here are "political parties" because Sa'odah Elias' report in The Star mentioned "opposition parties", instead. The opening two paragraphs in her report are as follows:

"The Election Commission has uncovered a ruse by supporters of opposition parties who misused unreturned ballot papers to claim that votes for their parties were deliberately chucked out.

"EC chairman Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman said these people collected unreturned ballot papers, particularly those meant for postal voters, and then marked them in favour of their parties."

Why the major discrepancy between The Star and other papers?

It is highly doubtful Chairman Rashid said one thing to NST and theSun and another to The Star. So, why is The Star report different?

Now, could it be The Star had a reason for mentioning "opposition parties" instead of "political parties"? If so, this should have been made clear in the story. But nowhere was the reason given.

So who was responsible for collecting the unreturned ballots? "Political parties" or "opposition parties"? Can we expect the media concerned and the EC to issue a clarification?

The press should also be asking all kinds of questions about postal ballots. How is it possible for "candidates' agents" to collect unreturned ballots from the police, military and others to whom the ballot papers were sent? Why the need for postal ballots when these people can vote just like other ordinary Malaysians? And are we going to see greater transparency and tighter supervision of postal ballots in the next general election?