KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 18 — Electoral reform group Bersih has surprisingly toned down its demand for the restoration of local government elections, a move seen to avoid confrontation with Pakatan Rakyat (PR) parties.
“Restoring local elections has always been part of Bersih agenda, but we are more concerned with the reform of the election process,” said Bersih secretary Faisal Mustaffa, who is also a member of the PKR Youth wing.
The group’s committee members met last night and all agreed that restoring the third vote is not “Bersih’s core demand but a long-term target”.
Faisal added that Bersih would continue to focus on pushing for administrative reform in the election system such as the cleaning up of the electoral roll, the use of indelible ink and the independence of the Election Commission (EC).
In November 2007, the group organised the largest street demonstration in the city in a decade, mobilising some 60,000 protesters to demand for free and fair elections.
The group’s effort in mobilising support contributed to Barisan Nasional’s (BN) worst electoral performance in Election 2008, which was held just four months later.
The federal opposition has dropped its commitment to restore the third vote in its Common Policy Framework scheduled to be launched tomorrow at PR’s first national convention.
The Malaysian Insider understands that PR will merely declare its commitment to "strengthen local democracy", giving them more options to handle the matter.
The opponents of local elections in PR are concerned with the “racial composition in major towns”, the administration centre of most local councils.
A senior DAP leader noted that concern was fallacious as the only Chinese-majority areas are Ipoh City in Perak and Georgetown in Penang. "Race should not be a concern as far s PR is concerned," he told The Malaysian Insider.
Some of the leaders were also reluctant to back the move, arguing that it would make local councillors dependent on party machinery.
“The parties who promised to restore local elections before the last general election must now explain to their voters of their decision,” said Maria Chin’s Coalition for Good Governance, a group that has been lobbying PR-ruled state to hold elections for local councils.
DAP and PKR had both pledged to restore local government elections in their manifesto during Election 2008.
Since the suspension of local elections in the 1960s, councillors are appointed directly by the state government and this has since turned into a political reward for ruling party officials.
No comments:
Post a Comment