Tindak Malaysia, a people’s movement to pressure the Election Commission (EC) to give voters a clean and fair electoral map, has gained some new weighty friends.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) chairperson Hasmy Agam and former Temerloh MP and CEO of the Global movement of Moderates (GMM) Saifuddin Abdullah, Tindak’s founder PY Wong said that the trio will now launch a new initiative to bring the EC out to meet the NGOs.

“The government will listen to you if you have one of two things -  a lot of money or  a big stick.

“We will rely on the datuks’ influence to persuade the EC that we are serious and we want a fair country,” Wong told reporters at GMM’s office in Kuala Lumpur.

Wong said that after spending two years drawing up a fairer electoral map, its focus was now on getting the EC to listen.

Its 1RUN campaign (1Rakyat, 1Undi, 1Nilai) hopes to draw 111,000 like-minded voters; while GMM will write to the EC, whch has in the past shirked almost all NGO forums, including those by the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections (Bersih).

“We are not at war with the EC,” said Saifuddin, who is a former Umno supreme council member.

“If the EC comes out, it is for their name and credibility. And when we invite the EC and they don’t come, then you can’t stop people from thinking that the EC is hiding something.”

“We would like the EC to come forward,” Saifuddin said, explaining how GMM’s participation can help ‘amplify’ the worthy cause.

The trio said that after 13 elections and 56 years of independence, the country was still undergoing democratisation. While BN and Pakatan have been bickering over the electoral map since last two general elections, Tindak Malaysia said it hoped that they can be the third force to seize control.

‘No one party has a total majority’

“The political reality is that no one party has a total majority.

“We need both sides to come to a consensus, so it is only natural that we get all stakeholders, everybody who is interested in free and fair elections,” Wong said.

He noted that Tindak had used its own money to acquire and analyse the electoral maps for the people’s sake and now it was willing to give it away for free and even put it online so that it can amass more voters to scrutinise the map and help the EC.

Following the constitution, the EC should redraw electoral boundaries every eight years and present it to the prime minister who will then seek Parliament’s stamp of approval. The electoral map used in last year’s election dates back to 2003-2005.

Saifuddin said that he now expected EC to present the new map by June and after its gazetting, people have a month to file objections and suggestions if they can gather over 100 voters to point out EC’s mistakes.

To a question, Saifuddin said that his participation in the project did not mean that he agreed BN has been “gerrymandering” the map. This means to skew the map by ethnicity, geography or breaking up local ties, to favour a particular political party.

“We are just saying that we can appreciate what people are complaining about,” he added. GMM is an idea articulated by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak in 2010, and is aimed at rallying moderates to reclaim the political centre stage.

Saifuddin, who lost his Temerloh MP seat to PAS Youth chief Nasruddin Hassan in GE13, conceded that he was a “late-comer” to this fight. He noted that in Temerloh, for example, the community was split into three different state assembly seats that didn’t make much sense.

Suhakam’s Hasmy meanwhile emphasised that he was not a politician but hoped that Tindak can bring elections in Malaysia to a higher standard. He cited that the ‘1RUN campaign’ was in line with Article 21 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights which stated that “everyone has a right to take part in the government” and that “the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government”.

During the press conference, Tindak, however, conceded that political apathy of Malaysians may still be its biggest enemy.

Tindak’s Wong said that he has invited over 100 NGOs to join its movement to draw EC out but only a handful have so far agreed.

Bersih, meanwhile has a different initiative called DART.