KUALA LUMPUR: An interim report to strengthen and make the Election Commission (EC) independent will be completed by next month, says Electoral Reform Committee (ERC) chairman Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman.
He added that he hopes to submit the report to the prime minister.
“If (the reforms) are implemented, we will have a commission that is untouchable,” he told reporters after a talk on the future of parliamentary democracy in Malaysia.
The 15 proposed reforms in the report concern the registration of political parties, election funding mechanisms and the revamp of the EC.
Rashid said he also hopes to raise the issue of fixing the date of general elections to avoid wasting time and money.
“We (EC) train 30,000 to 40,000 people for elections. If they are delayed, we need to train again,” he said.
Deputy Dewan Rakyat speaker Rashid Hasnon, who was also present, agreed that a date for general elections should be fixed so that political parties and the EC are prepared for elections.
The dinner talk was organised by the Academy for Leadership and Management, with cooperation from the ERC and election reform NGO, Bersih 2.0.
To a question by a participant on banning posters of candidates during general elections, Rashid said he would propose such a ban.
“If the government agrees to our recommendations, then we can do away with such posters,” he said.
EC deputy chairman Azmi Shahrom also agreed with Rashid, saying these posters were popular in the 1950s and 1960s as people did not have access to the internet then and did not know who their candidates were.
When asked about the possibility of online voting, Azmi said his personal opinion was “if the present ballot voting system is not broken, don’t fix it”.
He compared Malaysia to India, which uses an online voting system.
“Malaysia has a small population compared to India where millions of people vote,” he said.
Rashid agreed with Azmi, saying the ERC would not recommend online voting. - FMT
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