Allegations that it does not enjoy the confidence of the rakyat have been brushed aside by the Election Commission (EC), which went on to cite a study that shows the exact opposite.

NONE "A study by the National Professors Council (NPC) asked respondents if they believe and accept the results of elections declared by EC.

"Of this, 87.9 percent of the Malay respondents, 75.7 percent of the Chinese, 85.1 percent of Indians, 92.2 percent Sabahans and 85.1 percent Sarawakians said they do," EC secretary Kamaruddin Mohamed Baria ( above ) told a forum on GE13 in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

The study initiated by the NPC's politics, security and international affairs cluster also showed that 76.2 percent of the Malays, 59 percent Chinese, 82.5 percent Indians, 81.9 percent Sabahans locals and 71.1 percent Sarawakians believe that the EC's conduct of GE13 will be transparent.

Is it truly independent of government?

Speaking at the evening session of the forum organised by the office of Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim, Kamaruddin produced the survey after being lambasted by fellow panel members academician Ong Kian Ming and Bukit Bendera MP Liew Chin Tong.

Ong and Liew had asked him whether the EC was credible in the eyes of the people and they went on to cite the heavy composition of civil servants in the commission and its perceived failure to assure the rakyat that it is truly independent from government interference.

Bersih co-chairperson - Ambiga Sreenevasan At another session of the forum, Bersih co-chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan ( left ) raised the matter of constituency allowances for MPs, saying that in this most basic of things, the one-sided nature of the government in power was evident with the BN MPs receiving more money than opposition elected representatives.

To this fellow panellist and Hulu Selangor MP P Kamalanathan retorted that while the matter may have moral weight if Pakatan-led Selangor were to say this was wrong and did not do the same, he too would speak out against it.

However, he said, Selangor did the same with allocations for state assemblypersons and did not give fair allocations to the BN assemblypersons.

Therefore, Kamalanathan said, "it is okay for the BN to do so at the federal level", since Pakatan was doing the same in Selangor.

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