Lawyers for Liberty executive director Eric Paulsen said the conduct of free and fair elections had been in doubt as Malaysia is ranked 142nd out of 158 countries in terms of electoral integrity in a recent research paper.
“The EC must allow local and foreign observers to monitor the polls and to make an independent assessment,” he told FMT.
Paulsen said this in response to Human Rights Commission of Malaysia chairman Razali Ismail who announced that the local body would monitor the polls which must be held by August next year.
Razali said it wanted to observe the general election to ensure the process was in accordance with democratic standards and fulfils the people’s rights.
“Suhakam will be monitoring closely how the election will be conducted on the premise that democracy must exist with election integrity,” he said in a statement in conjunction with International Human Rights Day today.
Paulsen said Suhakam lacked resources but with careful planning and cooperation from the EC, it could play a vital role in defending and promoting a very fundamental right of citizens.
He said there had been many complaints and legal challenges against the EC, like malapportionment and gerrymandering of seats in favour of a certain political party when the election redrawing exercise was conducted.
“In fact, after the results of the 13th general election, there was a record number of election petitions filed,” he said, adding that almost all were dismissed and the litigants were ordered to pay high legal costs for bringing on the action.
A research paper titled “Malaysia’s Electoral Process”, made public recently, revealed Malaysia was only placed higher than Zimbabwe, Vietnam and Afghanistan in electoral integrity.
The academic paper pointed out Malaysia was far behind its Asean neighbours Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines.
The paper which studied the “Methods and Costs of Perpetuating Umno Rule” assigns a PEI (Perceptions of Electoral Integrity) score that measures electoral laws, electoral procedures, district boundaries, voter registration, party registration, media coverage, campaign finance, the voting process, and vote count.
In it, the author, Kai Ostward, from University of British Columbia, Vancouver, ranks Malaysia 142nd out of 158 countries while Zimbabwe was placed 143, Vietnam 147 and Afghanistan 150.
Denmark was in number one position (with the highest PEI score of 86), while Indonesia was ranked 68, Myanmar 83, Singapore, 94 and the Philippines 101.