KUCHING: A body called Rise of Social Efforts (ROSE) has expressed support for the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections’ (Bersih 2.0) proposal to split Malaysia’s electoral management body into three commissions with different jurisdictions and autonomies.
The proposal was made based on a research report launched by Bersih 2.0 entitled “Three is Better Than One: Institutional Reforms for Electoral Management in Malaysia”.
“We welcome this research paper which really confirms what has been recommended by various bodies looking into electoral reforms since 2011 — that we need an Election Commission (EC) that enjoys the public’s confidence,” ROSE president Ann Teo told New Sarawak Tribune on Wednesday (Feb 10).
She said if Malaysia wanted to achieve a world-standard democracy, this was one way to go by allocating more for an electoral management body.
“Democracy may come with a cost and if this method is able to restore the public’s confidence in the state of our nation’s democracy, then why not?” she said.
In Bersih 2.0’s proposal, the three proposed commissions resulting from the division of Malaysia’s electoral management body would be the EC, Election Enforcement Commission (EEC), and Electoral Boundaries Commission (EBC).
Their proposal was aimed at ensuring that electoral management could be implemented more efficiently, effectively, independently, and transparently.
