The Commissioner Against Corruption, Mr Cheong Weng Chon, speaks to reporters after casts his vote.
The Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) said today it had stepped up its inspection efforts in order to ensure a clean Legislative Assembly election, adding no cases of corruption had been identified by the CCAC so far during election day.
Speaking at the Instituto Salesiano polling centre after casting his vote, the Commissioner Against Corruption, Mr Cheong Weng Chon, today said encouraged voters to fulfil their civic duty to help maintain a clean election, by alerting the CCAC in the event of any suspicion of election corruption.
Observations of the CCAC indicated the election for the sixth Legislative Assembly had been clean. Mr Cheong said election teams had been cooperative in relation to the CCAC’s oversight.
As of 3pm, the CCAC had received via its telephone hotline a total of 53 enquiries of which 18 were complaints about either suspected corruption or violation of campaigning rules. The CCAC had made a total of 670 on-site inspections, as of 3pm, including 440 visits to restaurants; 95 inspections relating to transportation of voters to polling venues; and a further 135 inspections at other locations.
The CCAC has been paying close attention to information posted online via the Internet and has followed up immediately any complaint of alleged bribery. Any person confirmed as having offered a voter some form of advantage in exchange for their vote would be in breach of the law. The CCAC dedicated all-out effort against the threat of such infringements, added Commissioner Cheong.
When asked about an alleged bribery case relating to certain information posted online, Mr Cheong said the CCAC had invited representatives of the election team mentioned in the materials to discuss the matter further at noon today. Based upon a preliminary analysis, the CCAC considered the actions of that particular election team did not amount to ‘vote-buying’. In order to achieve a conviction for such an offence, a specific form of offered advantage would need to be identified. The CCAC would nonetheless continue to look into the matter.
The CCAC was aware of some associations that had provided today free breakfast to senior citizens. Mr Cheong stressed as a corruption-fighting body, the CCAC needed to consider the cause-effect relationship between the provision of a meal and a voter casting their vote for a particular election team. In this respect, the CCAC did not consider such action identified today had met the legal definition of persuasion of voters.