'Look into EC review proposals of think-tanks'

The proposed bipartisan committee to oversee the Election Commission (EC) should be empowered to look into several necessary changes to the commission as recommended by two NGOs.

These recommendations have been detailed in the interim election observation report that Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas) and the Centre for Public Policy Studies (CPPS) jointly produced.

Both think tanks were election observers accredited by the EC.

"This announcement is only a small step towards improving the level of public trust in the EC. The more important part is in the implementation.

"I urge the prime minister, and the current members of the EC, to give this special bipartisan parliamentary committee real teeth to do its job," Ideas CEO Wan Saiful Wan Jan (left) said in a statement today.

These recommendations include:

• The parliamentary committee should have the power to advise the Yang di-Pertuan Agong on the appointment and removal of EC members;

• Members of the EC should be recruited transparently from among experts in the field, preferably employing a competitive application and head-hunting process. The key criteria for EC membership should be the individual's core competence and their ability to command public confidence;

• The EC should have the powers to recruit and manage its own staff, independent from the civil service. The current approach of seconding staff from the civil service should stop, though former and existing civil servants should not be barred from applying; and

• The EC should devise a coherent public relations strategy, which must include a policy that prevents any EC member from making statements that could be construed as politically partisan.

Wan Saiful was responding to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's statement yesterday, in which Najib announced that a special committee of MPs would oversee the EC and "strengthen the EC's authority and credibility".

However, Najib did not reveal any details about the committee, other than that it would be bipartisan.