Electoral Reforms: EC has forgotten

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Four months ago, the parliamentary select committee (PSC) on electoral reform under the chairmanship of Datuk Dr Maximus Ongkili (BN-PBS) has made several recommendations to the Elections Commission (EC) to undertake reforms in its electoral system, management, electoral list clean up, postal balloting and so on.

Reminders after reminders were very often heard of particularly from the general public, the opposition front and the coalition of NGOs who organized the previous two Bersih rallies. Today, the same reminder was made by an opposition  member of parliament Anthony Loke citing that the EC has yet to implement any of the recommendations forwarded by the PSC until today.

So, what is wrong with EC? Before this, we do heard a few words from the EC chairman and deputy chairman respectively who demonstrated their arrogance by refusing public views and scrutiny onto the EC's entire electoral management system. Yes, they did gave in and announce several steps to implement some of the recommendations.

EC said they will implement the use of indelible ink, then followed by their pledge to clean up the electoral lists from various unknown, dubious and fraudulent voters in it, after that they said they are working on something to enable overseas Malaysians to vote in the next general elections and so on.

Then, where are the results? We haven't seen any until today. Have they forgotten about all these or are they hoping that we all forget about all these? Why are there no follow-up reports from the EC on their pledged electoral reforms which they had announced earlier?

What we could recall is there are about 22 recommendations forwarded by the PSC to the EC and out of that 18 recommendations were fully affirmed after the parliament voted to receive and confirm the report for implementation.

We want to ask the EC chairman and deputy chairman respectively, where are all those implementations, your road map, your plans, your schedule and your targeted completion? Do you want us to spell out for you all the 22 recommendations and after that, the 18 recommendations which were confirmed for implementation?

Come on, do not be so childish, arrogant and stubborn. As public servants, it is the utmost responsibilities of both EC chairman and deputy chairman to take up the recommendations from the PSC and implement those electoral reforms as soon as possible and come up with their road map publicly.

We urge EC to shape up or be shipped out!

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