The Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas) has criticised Transparency International-Malaysia (TI-M) for abruptly rejecting the Election Commission's invitation to be an election observer.

NONE Ideas chief executive officer Wan Saiful Wan Jan (left) said this may cause the remaining groups in the observer mission to be viewed with suspicion.

"I am worried that, by withdrawing at this last minute and without discussing the bigger picture with other organisations involved ... TI-M is inadvertently and unintentionally helping those who are bent on painting the wrong picture on the election observation mission and the organisations involved in it," he said in a statement yesterday.

Wan Saiful said Ideas, which is a member of the mission, had been in lengthy related discussions with TI-M up to last Thursday, and was shocked at its abrupt decision the next day that it would not accept the invitation.

TI-M yesterday said it had informed the EC on Jan 4 that it would not be part of the observer mission, hinting at dissatisfaction with the restrictive terms of reference to be imposed.

Third group to pull out

However, Wan Saiful said all the election observer organisations had expressed the same view during a meeting with the EC on Dec 13 last year, and that the TI-M should have been more firm in speaking up at the time.

"Indeed there are issues that we agreed to disagree with the EC, and the EC also agreed to disagree with us," he said.

"If TI-M had such strong reservations, why did they not put a strong argument to the EC when we were sitting face to face with them?"

TI-M is the third group to decline the invitation after the Society for the Promotion of Human Rights and election monitoring NGO National Institute for Democracy and Electoral Integrity pulled out from the mission.

Apart from Ideas, other think-tanks that have been invited by the EC are the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute, independent pollster Merdeka Centre and Majlis Belia Malaysia (Malaysian Youth Council).

NONE