Watching our elections
“Can you recall a by-election where there wasn’t a complaint about the electoral roll or postal votes? More recently, there are complaints about voters being moved out of the constituency, or their polling centres and voting localities changed,” says Mafrel chairperson Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh in a phone interview.
By Deborah Loh, The Nut Graph
ELECTION watchdogs have become a regular feature in Malaysian polls since at least 2005. In that year, Malaysians for Free and Fair Elections (Mafrel) monitored the Pengkalan Pasir by-election. Mafrel was even officially recognised by the Election Commission (EC) in 2007 as an independent elections observer.
Indeed, Mafrel wasn’t the first elections watchdog. Another group, the National Institute for Electoral Integrity (NIEI) was formed earlier following the 1999 Reformasi movement. Other watchdog groups have also since sprouted. There is the Malaysian Voters’ Union (Malvu), Sarawakians for Free and Fair Elections (Safrel), the Malaysia Election Observation Network (MEO-Net), My Election Watch (MEW), and the Sibu Election Watch (SEW). Several other civil society groups have also incorporated election advocacy and monitoring into their training programmes.
Membership of these groups may overlap. Nevertheless, what does their emergence say about citizens’ awareness, and public confidence in the EC? What role do they play in a democracy and of what value are they to the public? Additionally, how credible are they if they aren’t recognised by the EC?
Grassroots demand
“Can you recall a by-election where there wasn’t a complaint about the electoral roll or postal votes? More recently, there are complaints about voters being moved out of the constituency, or their polling centres and voting localities changed,” says Mafrel chairperson Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh in a phone interview.
“On that basis, I think that’s why more election watch groups are coming up. It shows that the EC still has room for improvement.”
Watch groups are tapping into the public’s low confidence in the EC and training volunteers to become polls observers. MEO-Net coordinator Ong Boon Keong says training has been conducted in Sarawak since September 2009 in preparation for the state elections, which must be called by June 2011.
“There’s growing citizen interest in elections and democracy but there’s been little avenue for those who are non-partisan,” Ong says in a phone interview.
It is about helping citizens “take ownership of elections”, he adds. Similar citizen-based movements began earlier elsewhere in the region, and are active in Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia and Indonesia.
The tasks for election watch groups are plenty. They include monitoring polling stations, campaigning, media coverage, and cross-checking the electoral roll with actual voters on the ground. Ong says the largest number of local election observers ever mobilised in Malaysia was 600 during the 2008 general election. In contrast, volunteers number between 100,000 to 200,000 during Indonesian or Thai elections, he says.
EC accreditation and credibility
Unsurprisingly, election watch groups are criticised as being pro-opposition since most of the faults they point out are committed by the EC and the BN. However, Mafrel did take both sides to task in the Hulu Selangor by-election.
That didn’t stop the EC from withdrawing Mafrel’s accreditation, however, for the recent Hulu Selangor and Sibu by-elections. The EC said Mafrel failed to submit reports to the commission on previous by-elections it had monitored since 2008. Report submission is a condition for accreditation.
