The Election Commission has now trained its sights at cyberspace campaigning, stating that it will monitor all material posted on the Internet in the run up to the general election, due by November next year.

Even private communications through e-mails will come under the watchful eyes of special teams set up by the EC, which said it would seek the help of IT officers and the Energy, Communications and Multimedia Ministry

The commission said that anyone found "campaigning by using illegal means, such as circulating sensitive issues via the Internet" will be charged in court.

Earlier this year, the EC has suggested that it wants to set up a poster/banner monitoring squad for each parliamentary constituencies during elections so that it could ensure all candidates fall in the relevant election laws.

Such proposals are bound to irk many quarters, especially the opposition politicians, for these seems trivial when the commission could utilise its resources on other more serious matters.

DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang hit the nail on the head by saying that the commission has got its priorities wrong when it mooted the poster/banner monitoring squad.

And so did social reform movement Aliran when it said the EC runs the risk of jeopardising its integrity by monitoring the Internet.

Questionable conduct

Opposition parties and independent observers have raised many other issues to the EC, seeking its intervention to ensure a smooth and fair election.

Most of the issues raised involve the ruling parties and these include the use of the state apparatus and the media during campaigning period and on election day, the promise of development goodies in exchange for votes and the unaccountable election expenses.

These are clearly in breach of the election laws but the EC has yet to do something concrete to solve these problems in time for the coming polls.

The other alarming issues involve the cleaning up of electoral rolls to remove some three million phantom voters, ensuring a quicker and hassle-free registration of eligible voters and limiting the powers and authority of the caretaker government.

If a neutral bystander was to dissect the abovementioned issues to see how the political parties, especially the ruling ones, have benefitted from these factors, he would come to realise that the EC has not been doing a good job in ensuring fair, free and clean elections in this country.

Further on this, it is the norm for the ruling parties to make use of government agencies such as the information ministry to voice their propaganda, utilising government department vehicles and workers to lay out new roads, bridges and other developments as a sweetener to entice voters, especially in rural areas and promising developments in constituencies in the form of better public amenities or schools or hospitals in return for votes.

These promises of goodies are then highlighted in the media, which also allocates sufficient space for the ruling parties to carry policy statements-cum-propaganda in their publications/programmes.

Independence under spotlight

The legality of all these is never questioned by the EC. The fact that a caretaker government should not be issuing policy decisions or spending public funds has never been addressed by the EC or the government.

And neither has the EC questioned the excessive expenses incurred by the ruling parties, via government funds, during the campaigning period.

For many, the root cause for this situation is simple - the EC is simply not an independent body. Its officials are political appointees and it has an office at the federal government administrative centre in Putra Jaya.

A case of guilty by association? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. But looking at the its track record, the EC has a lot to answer.

Observers will surely not miss that fact that during elections, the opposition parties always end up with the wrong end of a deal. No surprises here as the ruling parties will always have some advantages.

But when the advantages become too apparent, and at times at the expenses of the election laws, then the EC must intervene.

Thus by coming out with suggestions to introduce Internet monitoring teams, the commission is only giving the impression of extending the ruling parties vows to crush the opposition in the general election.

Opposition's domain

It is a well known fact that due to the prevailing media conditions in this country, the opposition has taken to the cyberspace as its route to reach out to the masses.

As such, with threats to even cut that avenue, the EC has only worsen the perception that it is not fair.

Worse still, by monitoring the Internet and e-mails, the EC will be accused of invading the privacy of Internet users and the government will only be seen as reneging an earlier pledge of not censoring the Internet.

Thus to save itself from bad perception and publicity, the EC should drop its trivial ideas and start looking into more serious issues.

K KABILAN is chief news editor of malaysiakini.