Video pushing for equitable constituency funding goes viral

 

Content creator Muhammad Iqbal Fatkhi is the man behind the video on the Constituency Development Fund.

PETALING JAYA: Party-hopping in Malaysia has become rampant in the last few years.

Content creator Muhammad Iqbal Fatkhi points to one major factor – the constituency development fund (CDF), or rather a lack of rules governing how it is divided up.

In a video published on Saturday that has garnered over 95,000 views across social media platforms, he points to the lack of equitable distribution of funds as a reason for a number of defections in recent years.

While many countries have CDFs – central government funds allocated to lawmakers for minor projects within their constituencies – there are laws controlling how money is allocated to elected representatives to ensure equality and fairness.

“Malaysia is one of the few (countries) that do not allocate their constituency development funds equally,” he said. Opposition members are “punished” for not being in government by getting less to spend on things like repairs to potholes and drains or welfare assistance to those in need.

“This incentivises opposition lawmakers to party hop. This was seen, for example, when Umno MPs left to join Bersatu after (the 14th general election) so they could serve their constituents with support from the federal government.

“Or when the MPs from Julau and Tebrau left PKR to join the Perikatan Nasional government (in March) in order to secure funding for their constituencies.”

Historically, he said, those in government could get millions of ringgit more than their opposition counterparts.

Iqbal said the announcement by deputy minister in the prime minister’s department (special functions) Mastura Yazid that all MPs would get the same allocations until the end of the year was a bit of good news.

He said it was now time for the issue of unbalanced funding to be addressed for good.

“One of the actions the government can take is to pass a CDF law that would, among other things, provide an allocation formula for each constituency, include the source of financing for CDFs in the annual budget and require lawmakers to publish details of how their CDFs were spent with punishments set for politicians who misuse or embezzle them.

“If this situation isn’t fixed, Malaysians will continue to be punished for who they vote for, and we’ll forever have MPs party-hopping like they were in an episode of the Squid Game and their lives depended on it.”

Election reform group Bersih 2.0 has also launched a petition asking the government to pass a law to address inequitable funding to settle the matter once and for all.

To do your part, and push for the kind of reform that could bring some long-needed political stability, sign the petition here. - FMT