Bersih’s aims for ‘one-on-one with PM’
The coalition intends to meet with the prime minister for the first time to discuss the appointment of a “fair and neutral” election commissioner.
Anisah Shukry, FMT
Frustrated with the Election Commission’s (EC) unceasing “ineptitude”, polls watchdog Bersih 2.0 has announced its intention to engage directly with Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak to discuss electoral issues plaguing the country.
The meeting, which Bersih chairperson Maria Chin Abdullah hopes will take place within the next year, will focus on the flaws in the election process and the role of the EC.
“We can’t do it this year, as it is already coming to an end. But we do have the intention to meet with the prime minister, and with him alone, so we will be communicating with him soon,” she told FMT.
Maria, who was elected chairperson in Nov and came into the position just this month, said the coalition was bypassing the EC to meet Najib directly because he had the powers to appoint the election commissioners.
“So if the PM is going to appoint a new chief, we are hoping he will take into consideration all the flaws that we bring up to him during our proposed meeting, and therefore appoint someone more fair and deserving of the position,” said Maria.
This will be the first attempt by the coalition to directly engage with the prime minister in a one-on-one meeting.
Previous efforts such as inviting him to its events, as well as holding global rallies have so far failed to garner positive attention from Najib, despite the massive influence Bersih wields.
However, Maria said she would not be pessimistic over the chances that Najib would agree to a meeting with Bersih when they write to him.
‘Take responsibility for your mistakes’
Meanwhile in a statement yesterday, Bersih took the EC to task for allegedly failing to take responsibility for its errors during the 13th general election – most notably over the issue of the easily washable indelible ink.
“The (EC’s) statement admitted to the failure of the indelible ink but evaded responsibility for them…the statement did not acknowledged(sic) flaws in procurement process of the so-called indelible ink used for GE13, which cost taxpayers RM7.1 million.
“Nor did the EC take responsibility for its ludicrous excuses following widespread discontent over the failure of the indelible ink,” office-bearers of the coalition’s steering committee said in a joint statement.
The coalition was referring to the EC’s 11-page post-mortem statement released a week ago detailing seven flaws in its handling of the May 5 polls.
In the statement, the EC acknowledged that the ink had stained ballot papers, its implementation was not explained thoroughly, and that the ink could be washed off and took to long to dry.
But it further added that they had since improved from feedback given by the media, and the two subsequent by-elections was testament to that.
Besides indelible ink, the post-mortem statement touched upon the lack of training and briefing of the election workers, its difficulty in detecting a person’s residential and bankruptcy status during nomination, and the difficult EC officers faced when executing their duties during the campaign period.
