Civil society and politicians alike today rapped the Elections Commission (EC) for considering a proposal to make Malay language proficiency a criteria to stand for elections.
The proposal, mooted by controversial lecturer Ridhuan Tee, requires that election candidates should have at least a credit in SPM Bahasa Malaysia.
According to national news agency Bernama, EC chairman Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof said the proposal needed further study, as there is no legislation which makes Malay-language proficiency compulsory.
However, various quarters have voiced their objection to the proposal.
“I strongly suggest that the EC focuses on the studies that the EC promised it would conduct following the proposals of the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on electoral reform,” Serdang MP Ong Kian Ming said.
He said instead of focusing its effort into studying Tee’s proposal, the EC should deliver on its promises made more than three years ago – to publish its findings and studies on the specific recommendations made by the parliamentary select committee (PSC) on electoral reform.
The PSC was formed in in 2011 to look into ways to improve the electoral process after tens of thousands took to the street to demand for clean and fair elections.
However, the PSC’s 10 recommendations were not completely fulfilled by the EC, including automatic registration of voters and guidelines for a caretaker government.
Ong said the EC needs to spend more time on other things, such as the conduct of elections and the redrawing of electoral boundaries; the proposal to have at least one third of parliamentary seats from Sabah and Sarawak; the possibility of improving or changing our current First-Past-the-Post electoral (FPTP) system to a mixture of FPTP and Proportionate Representation (PR) system.
DAP National Vice Chairperson Teresa Kok also opposed the idea; saying that the Tee’s idea should not even be given any serious thought.
“Firstly, there is no such similar academic requirement in the world’s vibrant democracies and secondly, as pointed out by Sarawak PKR vice chairman See Chee How , nine members of the Sarawak state cabinet sat for the Malay-language paper in their Senior Cambridge Examination (SCE) and the Higher School Certificate (HSC), which are equivalent to the SPM Form Five and STPM Form Six public examinations respectively,” said Kok in her statement.
She said that many Sarawakian politicians would not have been eligible to contest in its previous state elections were the SPM Bahasa Malaysia credit requirement a must.
Meanwhile, elections watchdog Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih) 2.0 said that candidates proficient in Bahasa Malaysia not does necessarily guarantee good representation or that they will be good politicians.
“In fact, it may have the reverse effect – it denies people of representation. This is a shame to democracy,” it said in a statement.
Although the group supports the idea of higher proficiency in Bahasa Malaysia amongst elected representatives, it believes that the responsibility does not lie with the EC or the government.
“The ability of candidates to grab the attention of voters through reading, writing and speaking is going to be paramount in their winning seats – candidates and parties know this. Choosing quality candidates should therefore be the prerogative of parties and voters,” Bersih said.
Both Bersih and DAP asserted that the EC should instead focus on electoral reforms and acting against electoral abuses.
-The Rocket
