Get EC to register political parties, civil society told

 

Umno’s party elections became the centre of a dispute between the party and the Registrar of Societies.

PETALING JAYA: Civil society should push Putrajaya to look into having the Election Commission be responsible for the registration of political parties, says an opposition MP.

Describing the issue as a “low hanging fruit” that could be attained by reform-minded societies, Bangi MP Ong Kian Ming said many political parties would want to push for the change.

At present, political parties are registered with the Registrar of Societies.

Ong said Umno would be among those parties which he said had been victimised of late by the Registrar of Societies; another is Muda, which is trying to get itself registered as a political party.

He said shifting the responsibility from the RoS to the EC would also help address issues such as whether Warisan, a Sabah-based party, could contest in West Malaysian seats.

“It’s more doable in the short term as you could find broader consensus,” he said.

“Trying to tackle the low hanging fruit (like the registration of political parties) would probably be easier compared to pushing for companies declaring their political donations to parties.”

He said the issue of having political parties registered by the EC was something that could not be included in the opposition’s recent political agreement with the current administration.

Ong said this at an online forum when asked what roles civil society could play in pushing for reforms in political financing or the registration of political parties by the EC.

He said when it came to such “sensitive topics”, studies show that any advances made would come in a gradual process and not in “one big sweep”.

Some sort of incremental progress would be the best way for the country to move forward. - FMT