PETALING JAYA, 2 Jan: The Election Commission’s (SPR) action to impose several restrictions to six watchdog organisations for the 13th General Elections (GE-13) does not reflect the preparedness and transparency of the organisation.
PKR Secretary General, Datuk Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said that SPR is still restricting the sic watchdog organisations from monitoring the entire election process independently, instead they are more focused on the post-election process.
The six watchdog organisations that were given accreditation by SPR are Transparency International Malaysia (TI-M), Merdeka Centre, Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas), Centre for Public Policy Studies (CPPS), the Malaysian Youth Council (MBM) and Human Rights Promotion Association (proham).
Meanwhile among the restrictions consists of prohibition of observing the vote counting process; not allowing any recording of fraud without the permission of SPR officers; disallowing communication with party agents and polling staff.
Also, speaking to the media is prohibited; prohibition of submitting information to third parties and they should be in the voting area throughout the election process.
“Monitoring process is very critical and important, particularly in ‘hot spots’.
“We discusses in detail regarding these restrictions and it proves that SPR is not transparent in conducting the elections in a fair and transparent manner,” he said in a media statement at the PKR headquarters.