The Election Commission (EC) will be seen as a money-grubbing institution if it increases the election deposit for parliamentary seats from RM5,000 to RM20,000, said a veteran opposition leader today.

[By doing that, EC will be] deviating from its constitutional mandate to ensure a level playing field in the electoral process without which there can be no free, fair and clean elections, said DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang in a statement today.

According to Lim, the current RM5,000 is already the highest rate among the Commonwealth countries.

He suggested that the EC should instead halve the election deposit to encourage voters to put themselves forward as candidates for election to public office.

Lim said the system of election deposits was not meant to deter candidatures but to ensure that all candidates who put themselves forward do so in a serious spirit and not as a joke.

For this reason, an election deposit should not be too prohibitive as to distort the election process into a money game favouring the rich while discouraging the serious and idealistic but not so financially strong candidates.

As such, Lim added, the EC should push for a reduction in the deposits in the soon-to-be amended 1958 Elections Act and 1954 Election Offences Act.

Dubious distinction

He said the reduction will also save Malaysia from having the dubious distinction of having the highest election deposit in the Commonwealth.

Lim provided details of election deposits charged in several Commonwealth countries to back his claim.

In the United Kingdom, the election deposit for a parliamentary candidate is equivalent to RM2,700; in Australia, it is between RM500 and RM1,000; RM480 in Canada; RM40 in India; RM420 in Ireland; and RM160 in New Zealand.

The government early this week tabled for the first reading its proposed amendments to the election laws. The amendments include a hike of 300 percent in the deposits for parliamentary seats. The RM3,000 deposit for a state seat remains.

Other amendments include making the electoral rolls unchallengeable in court once it is gazetted by the EC and raising the compensation payable by a complainant who lodges a baseless objection (or done in bad faith) over the insertion of his or her name into the electoral roll from RM200 to RM1,000.

However, Minister in the Prime Ministers Department Dr Rais Yatim was quoted by national news agency Bernama on Thursday as saying that the new amount on the election deposit will not be implemented with immediate effect.

The RM20,000 is the ceiling or maximum amount that can be imposed anytime in the future, said Rais, adding that the amount was fixed so that the government need not amend the election laws every time it wished to raise the deposit in future.