Ambiga: Gov't should provide 'no strings attached' funding for Bersih

Former Bersih chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan (above) said the government should provide funding for electoral watchdog NGO Bersih for its electoral monitoring activities.

“They do so much work on the ground for election-watching.

“My own view is it is time for the government to fund Bersih, not necessarily fully,” she said in a speech during a Bersih fundraising dinner in Petaling Jaya last night.

Ambiga, who is also the former Malaysian Bar president, said the Bar Council used to receive some funding from the government yet it still spoke out against its policies when needed.

“So (the funding) must be no-strings-attached because the kind of work that they (Bersih) do […] there is a lot of work to do.

“So I would like to see this government, despite Bersih’s criticism, say that they will give them some form of funding so they can carry on their very important work,” she said.

For example, she pointed out that Bersih will have its work cut out for it for the upcoming Sarawak state elections which will most likely be held next year and latest by 2021.

Ambiga also spoke about the possibility of a redelineation exercise, saying that she had hoped that the constitution will allow for a redelineation for “unusual circumstances” with the sudden surge of voters due to the lowering of the voting age to 18 years old as well as the implementation of automatic voter registration.

“I was hoping that there was something in the constitution that said if you have unusual circumstances like that, you can have a redelineation.

“(But) there is nothing there. The constitution doesn’t cater for the lowering of the voting age but if there is an increase in seats in Parliament, then that’s possible,” she said.

The bill to amend the Federal Constitution to lower the voting age to 18 years old as well as to have automatic voter registration was passed at the Dewan Rakyat last Tuesday with a total of 211 votes.

The last redelineation exercise was done in 2017 during the BN administration and the Federal Constitution states that a redelineation can only be carried out once every eight years.

On a separate matter, Ambiga also said she wants to be able to stand at Dataran Merdeka in her yellow Bersih T-shirt, something she was never able to do.

“The one thing they never allowed Bersih to do all these years (is that) they did not allow us to go in our yellow T-shirts and stand in Dataran Merdeka.

“I would like to see Bersih do that. We need to reclaim that ground. That is a symbolic gesture.

“I want to stand in Dataran Merdeka in my Bersih T-shirt,” she said.

Though Bersih has held a number of demonstrations and protests near Dataran Merdeka, the authorities have always barricaded the landmark to prevent protesters from reaching it. - Mkini