Friday, July 29, 2011

Malaysia's Electoral System Truly Reflects People's Wish - Chandra

PUTRAJAYA, July 28 (Bernama) -- 1Malaysia Foundation chairman Dr Chandra Muzaffar has called on the society to look at the country's electoral system in a fair, balance and objective manner, saying it is not beneficial to label the system as worst, archaic or inapplicable.
Although there are shortcomings in the system which should be rectified, he said, it has managed to uphold the country's principles of democracy because it truly reflects the wishes of the people.
"That is the barometer," he told Bernama, here.
Notwithstanding that, he said, there are also shortcomings in the electoral systems of other countries.
Dr Chandra was asked to comment on the call for reform in the country's electoral system. Although there might be a genuine wish to see reform in the election system, he said, the existing one should not be viewed as outdated.
He added that the present system had managed to reflect the wishes of the society.
"For instance, in 1959, there were apprehensions among the people. This caused the Alliance Party, the coalition prior to Barisan Nasional, to lose two states, namely Kelantan and Terengganu.
"In 1963, the Alliance Party performed better because the people were solidly behind the government at that time due to the confrontation with Indonesia.
"It was the same story in the 2004 general election. The BN performed well because a new prime minister had just taken over the leadership, but the coalition fared worse in 2008. The reason was because the people were feeling uneasy," he said.
On the biometric system, he said, the matter should be studied thoroughly and that discussions should be held with the opposition to explain the system.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced last week that the government would allocate funds to the Election Commission to implement the biometric voter registration and verification system to deal with the alleged existence of phantom voters.
Dr Chandra said: "If the system is to be implemented, there should be consensus from all parties. We don't want a situation where the opposition is rejecting the system and resorting to boycotting the election. This is not beneficial to any party."
Dr Chandra also noted that the opposition was adamant on urging the EC to use the indelible ink system, but said that it too had its weaknesses.
"Although the biometric system may have its own weakness, in my opinion, if we are to compare the two, the biometric system is far better," he said.

tunku : the oppositions just want to show to the world that EC is not transparent but they forget the facts shows otherwise.they are preparing to give excuses . just look during voting, a polling agent from each party that is contesting will be there to witness from start to the ends.the agent will be witnessing the counting till the announcement,still they want to say that EC is not transparent.if EC is not transparent they will not win in the election.if bn can manipulate the voting, will they be without 2/3 majority in the parliament now? what about the states won by pakatan.i think EC should not give much face to these morons. let the people decides comes the next GE.

5 comments:

Zainal A. Kasim said...

Let's explore the following:

(1) call all those accusers to go through the list one by one and ask them to dictate which one is phantom voters, double registration, etc. If proven true, strike the names out;

(2) once done call for election immediately. Let's settle this once and for all. The best man win;

(3) let's agree on the idelitable ink. But they must also agree to the use of biometric. Biometric to be use before voting and once they voted, use the ink. As we don't trust each other, let's have both system in place. Both must sync to avoid any unscrupulous persons from taking advantage.

After that, once the new government has been chosen, all must SHUT UP!

Anonymous said...

The Chairman of the Election Commission should do a better job of explaining himself and the work of the Commssion. I do not know if you saw his last press conference.

In the internet age those servants of government who are in the front line should take time to ensure that timely disclouse of information is made in a accountable and transparent manner. In the event they are unable to do this then the reputational riks to government by their actions will do untold damage to our government.

I hope that the PM is reading this. To protect yourself you must appoint people who are capable of protecting you reputation.

Anonymous said...

The issue here is "Does the Rakyat have faith in the SPR/EC performance in conducting free and fair elections and if not are they capable of explaining or take actions to give confidence back to the SPR/EC"

The answer so far is a big "No" and they were caught lying and giving silly excuses.

That means SPR/EC must be fired and new people take over who can do the job.

They are now like "Little Napoleons" to the Rakyat.

Anonymous said...

majority had faith in ec, only morons comes up with slanders aganist ec like the pakatan monkeys.

Anonymous said...

'MORON' according to the Soeaker of the dewan Rakyaat is unparliamentery language.