Overcoming our democratic deficit

NOV 7 — I am currently in Britain meeting Malaysians and talking to them about politics. I was also recently in the United States, at the Bay Area in California, for a similar purpose

It was heartening to see the strong level of interest that Malaysians residing in both countries showed in the political situation back home, especially after the last general election. They asked the usual questions: like whether Pakatan Rakyat can win in the next polls, and when will we resolve our internal difficulties.

But another question that often cropped was when, if ever, the expatriate Malaysian community will get to vote in its elections.

The question reminded me of our nation’s democratic deficit — how in reality our so-called democratic system falls glaringly short in too many areas to be truly called as such. There’s more to being a democracy than simply holding elections every four or five years.

It’s about creating institutional cultures and practices that allow for a level-playing field and for the optimum participation of the people. It’s about ensuring that too much power can never be concentrated in the hands of one person or group. This sadly isn’t the case in Malaysia.

Our political process is still plagued by imbalances and weaknesses that more often than not result in the headlines which we find so heartbreaking. There are commonsense methods to solve them, but the government, for all its promises of reform, cannot seem to bring itself round to putting them into motion.

The bad news is that until we close this deficit, Malaysia will always be in a state of waithood, or being neither here nor there as a country. We will never achieve lasting or sustainable socio-economic or cultural progress until we first expand our political freedoms and civil liberties substantively. The two are not mutually exclusive, indeed they are dependent on each other — in Asia more so than anywhere else.

The political misuse of public institutions, reviving local council elections, draconian laws and cleaning up the electoral roll have been raised countless times, so rather than repeating those issues I’d like to touch on those that are less well-known. The three most glaring in my mind are postal votes for Malaysians abroad, the grossly skewed delineation of electoral constituencies as well as campaign financing.

Whenever we hear the term postal vote, usually we will think about the votes given to the military and police serving away from their homesteads, and how these ballots are reportedly used to ensure BN victories. The results of several state and parliamentary seats in 1999, 2008 and 2009 went the way they did because of postal votes.

Their very existence is rather archaic. It’s ironic that our security forces (and their families) are still being forced to exercise their right to vote in this manner, long after the Communist insurgency in our country was declared over and in the absence of any external threat. On the other hand, Malaysians who are living overseas are denied the right to vote at all.

We all know that there is a growing number of Malaysian students and workers overseas, in the US, Britain, Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, the Gulf nations, Egypt and Jordan, to name a few. These are our countrymen who have kept their citizenship and many plan to return home eventually.

They care about what’s going on in Malaysia and want to exercise their rights and responsibilities as citizens. But when they contact the authorities about voting, they are sent round the bend with various contradictory excuses. They have been told that only the diplomatic staff members are allowed to so; or that there was not enough time to transport the ballots overseas or that the high commission or embassy simply does not provide this service.

According to a statement in Parliament by Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, on Nov 4, the postal vote is to allow security forces and students abroad to vote. Yet from my personal experience as a student in London and from my conversations with others, many students have been unable to exercise this right.

I am interested to hear from anyone who has been able to do so. But even if the right exists in some places, it surely ought to be made available to all Malaysian citizens abroad regardless of where they are.

Indonesians citizens in Malaysia — and not just students but workers and labourers as well — recently turned up at their embassy in Kuala Lumpur to vote for their legislatures and president. Similarly, Iranians in the US — whom we all know doesn’t have the best of diplomatic relationships with the Islamic republic — cast their ballots at hotels and mosques across that country for this year’s disputed presidential election.

Here’s another irony: some Malaysian students in Britain have voted in British elections (Commonwealth citizens are allowed to via the Representation of the People Act 2000), but never for their own country!

Disenfranchised expatriate Malaysians are only part of our democratic deficit. Another flaw is the disparity between voters and seats as a result of gerrymandering. The original Federal Constitution provided that discrepancies between constituencies could not exceed 15 per cent.

This provision was removed for some reason in 1962. We are thus left with anomalies like the Kapar parliamentary constituency, which has 112,224 voters compared to the seat of Putrajaya that has only 6,608 voters. Thus a vote in Putrajaya is worth nearly 20 times in comparison to a voter in Kapar. There are state seats that are bigger than the former in some places! Surely this is a mockery of democracy?

Hence, even in former Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s huge victory in 2004 when the BN obtained 90 per cent of the parliamentary seats, it only won 63.9 per cent of the popular votes. Many have in the past called for our current electoral system to be replaced by a proportional voting one, as exists in Australia and other countries.

There might be less talk of this now since the opposition has made significant gains in the elections. Furthermore I believe that there are strong arguments both for and against the present first-past-the-post system that we still have not fully comprehended. The difficult issue about electoral reform is that the victors are always less inclined to change a system that benefits them.

But even if we agree to maintain the present voting system, Malaysians who care about democracy must speak up against the grossly skewed system we have today. It might be impossible to achieve proper proportionality under the first-past-the-post system, but restoring the constitutional provision against lopsided constituencies mentioned earlier as envisioned by our founding fathers upon Merdeka is surely a reasonable and viable alternative.

Lastly, the issue of campaign financing. Let’s face it, political parties can only perform with a certain measure of funding. But, as we know, corruption will inevitably occur if the fundraising process is not accountable and transparent.

Malaysia lacks proper laws in this area. Candidates running in elections have limits to their electoral expenses, but it is far from adequate. Their campaign accounts are not audited.

Candidates are only penalised for not submitting expenses reports. At any rate, there is a loophole that allows expenses covered by a political party to be considered distinct from its candidates. Certain parties have in the past surely spent much more than the RM200,000 cap for each of their parliamentary candidates!

Advanced democracies have come up with better mechanisms. In the US, for example, corporations and labour unions are prohibited from donating to federal campaigns but can donate to political action committees. Government funding is available for presidential candidates that meet certain requirements.

Candidates who choose to accept this are subject to a spending limit in return. Candidates, parties and political action committees are expected to routinely file reports disclosing funds raised and spent. Individual donations are also limited to a certain amount.

There are also local initiatives in the US such as “Clean Money, Clean Elections” that provide qualified candidates with matching government funding for a number of small donations, that in turn bar them from raising money from other sources. Candidates who choose not to accept public funding are still subject to many restrictions, which means that most candidates participate in the scheme in practice.

In Britain, the Electoral Commission requires all political parties to register with it. The commission sets down accounting requirements for them and regulates their donations and loans. Donations over a certain amount to the national or local parties must be declared. Donors must either be voters registered in the electoral roll or organisations based in Britain.

All forms of donations, including from party headquarters must be declared. There is also a limit on how much can be spent in the run-up to a general election. In addition, under the “Short Money” policy opposition parties are given funding to assist their parliamentary duties, travel costs and the running of the office of the Opposition Leader.

These safeguards are not perfect, of course. Campaign finance reform is still a major issue in the US, with even the most basic laws requiring the adroit championship of luminaries like John McCain.

Also, the recent MP’s Expenses Scandal in Britain has rocked its political system to the core. For all these shortcomings however, they are still leaps and bounds over what we have to make do with in Malaysia.

The desire for change following the 8th of March provides an opportunity for reform to overcome our democratic deficit. Malaysians expect much more now from their politicians and this is the right time for them to demand more probity from them.

Furthermore, due to BN’s loss of their two-thirds majority in Parliament, it cannot now embark on a unilateral re-delineation of Parliamentary constituencies, and many other states under both BN and Pakatan are also unable to do so.

A Royal Commission ought to be formed with the view of recommending concrete package of political reforms. These can include revising draconian laws, prohibiting the use of  government machinery, reviving local elections and cleaning up the electoral roll.

It could also consider expanding postal votes to all Malaysians abroad, lowering the voting age, reducing discrepancies in the sizes of constituencies and reforming campaign finance.

These initiatives are not difficult or expensive to set into place. They simply require political will and for one to care enough about democracy to want to implement them in the first place.

By closing our democratic deficit, we will make our public life more open and meaningful by making it more relevant to the lives of ordinary Malaysians as well as less corrupt.

* Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad is the political secretary to the Selangor Menteri Besar and Keadilan state assemblyman for Seri Setia. He was the youngest elected representative in the 2008 general election and blogs at www.niknazmi.com. The views expressed are his own.