PUTRAJAYA: The Electoral Reform Committee (ERC) is studying a proposal on whether the government should provide funding to political parties as is practised in most developed countries, said its chairman Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman (pix).
He said the proposal was one of the 16 components of the election improvement study which was seriously viewed by the ERC and that the committee would provide the best formula to ensure that the assistance provided was fair regardless of party (affiliation).
“This will be controlled by the body that we will determine will control political funding,“ he told a media conference after gaining feedback from stakeholders for the improvement of the electoral system, here today.
Abdul Rashid said currently there were about 50 registered political parties in the country but only 10 were active, while the rest were unable to continue their activities because of financial problems.
“When they send their annual reports (to the Registrar of Societies), they are revived, but they cannot function as they don’t have the money.
“We want to determine that the government will assist political parties in accommodating some of their financial needs because in a democracy, the presence of more political parties is always better,“ he said.
Meanwhile, Abdul Rashid also acknowledged that the Malaysian electoral standard was still not convincing with only part of all the 15 important components of the electoral system in developed democracies being enacted as law
He cited as an example that there were no laws on media control during an election here as there were in other developed nations.
“Our laws exists for only three or four (components). For the others, we use only administrative instructions from the Election Commission (EC).
Abdul Rashid said the ERC’s interim report was expected to be handed over to Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad within the next seven months before being presented to the Cabinet.
“Not all our proposals will be implemented at the same time, but we hope that as many of them would be enforced,” he said.
He also proposed that a full report of the election improvement survey be made public to determine if the democracy of Malaysian election was the same as that of developed nations.
Abdul Rashid said the gathering of feedback from stakeholders including political parties would continue in several states, as well the online views from the public.
The ERC was set up by the government on Aug 28, 2018, comprising 20 members of various backgrounds and given two years to conduct an electoral improvement survey. — Bernama
