Electoral Reform Commission (ERC) chief Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman has agreed that a law is required to prevent by-elections engineered through the resignation of incumbents.
Responding to a question on this, he said: "I agree there should be (a law), not just to prevent, but also to control these kind of things”.
Abdul Rashid, who once headed the Election Commision (EC), said seats should only be vacated when it is necessary to do so.
However, he said such a law should not be formulated or amended under the existing electoral laws, but rather laws related to Parliament.
"This is not the concern of the EC; it should not be the function of the EC to stop people from resigning as the EC only handles elections whenever there is a vacancy," he added.
The Port Dickson by-election had courted criticism due to its incumbent resigning to allow PKR president-elect Anwar Ibrahim to contest.
Anwar, who was serving a five-year sentence in prison for sodomy, secured a royal pardon and was released on May 16.
He was then endorsed by Pakatan Harapan to become the eighth prime minister after Dr Mahathir Mohamad although a timeline was not set.
Before this, two other by-elections were engineered in relation to Anwar - the Permatang Pauh by-election in 2008 and Kajang by-election in 2014.
Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail resigned as Permatang Pauh MP on July 31, 2008, to pave the way for Anwar's return to politics.
In 2014, the Kajang state seat was vacated with hopes of making Anwar become the Selangor menteri besar.
However, the conviction by the Court of Appeal in Anwar's sodomy case resulted in Wan Azizah replacing him as the PKR candidate in Kajang. The party's deputy president Azmin Ali was eventually appointed as menteri besar. - Mkini
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