Do more than just ‘finger massage’, EC told
KUCHING: The Election Commission (EC) must consult organisations that act as election watchdogs before submitting the constituency delineation proposal to Parliament for approval.
Batu Lintang assemblyman See Chee How, who pointed this out yesterday, said the EC must engage more efforts than the ‘finger massage’ procedure to ensure every election is conducted in a clean and fair manner.
“The irregularities and improprieties in the conducts of the EC had yielded a negative public perception on the coming general election and the EC must do much more to avoid and eliminate electoral frauds.
“The refusal of the EC to engage with the citizens’ initiated election watchdog organisations in the country and the international observers has cast doubts on the integrity and commitments of the purportedly independent EC to conduct a free and fair election,” he said in a press statement.
See was responding to the recent clarification by EC chairman Datuk Seri Mohd Hashim Abdullah on the ‘finger massage’ procedure.
Last week, Hashim clarified that the ‘finger massage’ procedure which involved the inspection of a voter’s index finger before dipping it into the supposedly indelible ink was nothing new as the procedure was practised and used in the 2016 state election.
According to him, the ‘finger massage’ or closer inspection of the index finger is to avoid a voter from voting twice, thereby preventing any fraud during the voting process.
See, who is state Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) vice chairman, asserted that the EC ought to uphold all the fundamental and basic principles of delineation exercises being practised in countries with parliamentary democracies around the world.
He felt that in its haste to rush through the constituency delineation process EC had ignored such a fundamental practice and caused a big dent in the poll process in the run-up to the coming general election.
“An election must be seen to be conducted in a clean and fair manner,” he stressed.
He said this was the reason why the EC was constituted under the Federal Constitution to make it an independent body.
As such, he said it is still not too late for the EC to engage the election watchdog organisations to run through their recommendations for constituency delineation before the EC report is submitted to the Parliament for approval.
“The general election should be held back while the EC and the citizens’ initiated civil rights groups are consulted and their inputs considered to put in more measures to avoid and eliminate electoral frauds.
“The coming general election is thus far the most important, considering the challenges that are faced by the country and the administration, which has generated keen international attention.
“It is in the interests of the country that the EC can raise itself up to the occasion, to be independent and show that this will be a clean and fair election to safeguard our Malaysian parliamentary democracy,” added See.