EC criticised for recent decisions

Written by Melody Song, The Edge

Is the Elections Commission (EC) a component party of the Barisan Nasional (BN)? This question is sort of a running joke amongst many political observers as the EC has in many instances – especially of late – made decisions that clearly favoured the ruling coalition.

The latest EC decision that has fuelled criticism of it pandering to the BN was its decision to push the decision on the Penanti by-election to Monday, despite having met to discuss the issue last Wednesday. Whether the Umno Supreme Council meeting, held last Friday, had anything to do with the delay remains unknown, but the timing of the delay certainly raises many eyebrows.

Election Commission Chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof denies that the Umno supreme council meeting had anything to do with it, saying the delay stemmed from external factors. “It was not relevant at all to the EC’s decision,” he told The Edge Malaysia. “We made the announcement within 10 days according to the powers given to us. I did nothing wrong.”

Technically, he’s right. He did nothing wrong but the timing of the decision, coupled by the EC’s long history of decisions that seem to favour the BN, has led the public to question its impartiality.

The Election Commission, set up in 1975, is responsible for revising and updating the electoral roll, reviewing the boundaries of polling constituencies, holding general and by-elections and conducting voter registration drives.

Famous controversies include the 1999 disenfranchisement of 680,000 new voters from voting in the general election although they had registered many months prior. Political scientist and elections expert, Wong Chin Huat of Monash University Sunway, says that incident really fuelled speculation that the EC acts in the interest of the BN.

The Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih), which Wong is part of, has also compiled a list of instances of egregious behavior by the EC.

More recently, the decision to hold all three by-elections in Bukit Selambau, Bukit Gantang and Batang Ai on the same day and on a weekday at that, was heavily criticized for advantaging the government.

“The opposition has fewer resources and thus has more difficulty waging three campaigns simultaneously,” says US-based political analyst Ong Kian Ming. “Having the polls on a weekday would result in a lower voter turnout as those who work out of town might not bother to return home to vote. These people are usually younger and working urban areas – the kind of people who vote opposition.”

Ong, who specializes in elections, also questions why the polls were held after the Umno General Assembly and not before. “The boost that Umno got from it having a new president probably helped win it some extra support from the Malay electorate,” he says.

That the EC is far from impartial is a commonly held view. To alter that perception, Ong suggests some short term things that the EC can do including conducting a massive registration drive for eligible but non-registered voters.

“Analysis has shown that younger voters (who make up the majority of unregistered voters) tend to vote for the opposition,” he says. “If the EC can show that they are not afraid of making a big push to increase registration rates, it would give some confidence to the public that the EC are more independent than it seems.”

Other quick wins Ong cites include holding consultation sessions with both the opposition and the government, before deciding on by-election dates, as well as consulting NGOs such as Malaysians for Free and Fair Elections (MAFREL) and Bersih on suggestions for improving the electoral process. “If the EC were to do such things, straight away people would say they are improving,” he says.

As for long term solutions, both Ong and Monash’s Wong concur there needs to be a structural revamp.

Wong says that because Malaysian civil servants are so clearly biased towards the government, realpolitik dictates that we don’t attempt to go towards a Western democracy approach straight away but rather adopt the Eastern Europe approach whereby the EC members are made up of politicians.

“Membership should be allocated according to (popular) vote share and be reflective of parliament to have some checks-and-balances,” he says. “That way it’s more transparent and more debates compared to the current system which is completely opaque.”

Ong disagrees with adopting the Eastern European approach saying that the problem with having political representatives in there is that it makes everything a political battle. “This is exactly what is happening in Mexico right now,” he says. “It becomes really messy.”

One key step that needs to be taken, Ong says, is for the EC to be taken out of the purview of the Prime Minister’s Office and be made into a standalone institution. Its staff should not be civil servants who are answerable to the government.

Whatever the case, neither the Eastern European model of having the EC made up of political representatives from all parties nor the notion of the EC being completely independent of the government, is likely to be adopted by the BN.

What you’ll have then is an EC that will continue to be seen to be biased even at times when it is not. “This won’t change as long as there is no restructuring done,” Ong says.