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Political funding laws may have missed the elephant in the room

Just about everyone (apart from the ruling party) is sceptical and dismissive of the move to legislate political funding and I believe they are very right in doing so.

The biggest elephant in the room, ie political funding via government approval of projects and monetary grants during an election period is the largest ‘political donation’ not addressed. The ruling party does not need any other foreign or local donations. They just approve projects and hand-outs on the campaign trail and these are claimed to be already-pledged government business.

This should be the first priority that the proposed legislation should ban. Otherwise it will be completely useless as it will tie up the opposition but free up the ruling party to do whatever they want. My suggestion is that maybe 30 days before and after an election period, any and all sorts of government hand-outs/project announcement must stop.

How about corporate social responsibility (CSR) work from government-linked companies and government bodies which is quite prevalent during election time. These are not covered as the spending is not on political parties but directly to the public like building roads and houses during election time, but marked as CSR initiatives.

Why are donations and expenditure from recipients of government contracts not addressed? This will then be a recycling exercise, award contracts and the money flows back as political funding, all declared and legitimate, of course.

Use of state apparatus which does not involve direct cash flow, for example television broadcasts of government ministers on official duties, use of government vehicles such as planes and helicopters to visit election areas but packaged as normal official visits, although the last visit was during the last election.

As we all know from experience, legislation, any legislation will not work as it will normally mean that opposition transgression will be selectively and discriminatorily prosecuted. We can see this from the numerous current example under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) , Sedition Act and Peaceful Assembly Act (PAA). Whatever assurance given now will not be of any worth.

Companies that donate to the opposition will be unduly targeted; even now there is an urging for those who support Bersih to have their projects pulled. The funds belong to the government of Malaysia, not the ruling party. The ruling party is merely the custodian of taxpayer funds. If opposition supporters must not get their share of government projects, then they should also be exempted from paying tax.

As you can see there are various reasons that this proposed legislation will never work, it is just meant to hinder or bog down donation to opposition parties, not actually solve the ethics, process and supervision of the political funding mechanism.

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