Cabinet to discuss PSC minority report, says Nazri

The government will be examining the contents of the opposition’s minority report together with the parliamentary select committee’s (PSC) report on electoral reform tabled in the Dewan Rakyat on Tuesday.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz (right) said that he submitted the report prepared by the Pakatan Rakyat members today.

However the reports will only be discussed next week.

"I brought the matter before the cabinet today but Maximus (Ongkili) is overseas at the moment so we will go through it next Friday," he told Malaysiakini today.

The PSC on electoral reform made up of nine parliamentarians submitted 22 recommendations after deliberating for about six months on various contentions affecting the election process.

Pakatan representatives - Azmin Ali (PKR-Gombak), Dr Hatta Ramli (PAS-Kuala Krai) and Anthony Loke (DAP-Rasah) -unhappy with the final report had appealed to Parliament Speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia to have their minority report appended to PSC report, after being snubbed by the committee.

They faced further obstruction as their appeal was denied by Pandikar on grounds that it was a splintered opinion and not a reflection of the majority.

Pandikar also argued that there were no precedents in parliamentary practices in other Commonwealth nations of the inclusion of a minority report.

The opposition nevertheless countered Pandikar’s stance by insisting that minority reports have been tabled in parliaments in Jamaica and in Britain.

However, the Speaker refused to admit their claims and instead called for votes on the PSC final report without a debate.

“Yesterday, Fong Po Kuan (DAP-Batu Gajah) asked in the Dewan that the (minority) report, although not tabled in Parliament be brought before the cabinet, so I agreed and submitted it today,” said Nazri.

The five recommendations in the minority report are for the EC to:

1. Admit that it is illegal to change voters’ constituencies and return the 31,294 affected voters to their constituencies as of the last general election, within 30 days of the PSC report being tabled in Parliament;

2. Remove 42,000 voters from the electoral roll whose citizenship cannot be confirmed by the National Registration Department (NRD), within 15 days of the report being tabled;

3. Investigate the more than 1,000 voters older than 100 years (including one who is allegedly 159 years’ old) and clean the electoral roll of this within 30 days of the report being tabled;

4. Work with the NRD to check on more than 15,000 instances where the gender of the voters conflicts with their MyKad numbers, where numbers ending with an even number is supposed to be for females and odd number for males, and clean the electoral roll within 30 days of the report being tabled; and

5. Change the status of some 45,000 spouses of police officers from postal voters to normal voters because they are not eligible to be postal voters, within 15 days of the report being tabled.