As undergraduates nationwide gear up for next month's campus elections, a student coalition today stressed that the polls must be conducted in a fair and clean manner.

Solidariti Mahasiswa Malaysia (SMM) - which represents 10 student bodies - said previous campus elections saw elements of prejudice and the trampling of students' rights.

SMM spokesperson Mohd Khoirol Anwar Mat Zuki said the use of the e-voting this year provided greater room for election irregularities.

He also recounted how university authorities had recorded the serial numbers on ballot papers as well as barring certain candidates from contesting.

"Students must be granted with freedom to cast their votes without external political interference," he said when met at the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

The student leader had led a 30-member delegation to the commission to submit a memorandum on the upcoming campus elections.

Monitoring team

In the eight-page memorandum, SMM urged Suhakam to play a more pro-active role in monitoring the elections.

Among others, it asked the commission to draw-up a guideline and a code of ethics to be followed during campus elections and to form a monitoring team headed by Suhakam.

Khoirol said the guideline should focus on the campaigning period, the conduct of the elections and the vote counting process.

"The current guideline for campus election is too flexible and can be easily modified by certain quarters in line with their political interests," he added.

As for the monitoring team, he said it should monitor the conduct of the campus election commission (which is the university authority) from nomination day until the end of the counting process.

He added that the team should also be empowered to take action against those who violate the guideline.

Khoirol said monitoring was vital as students in previous elections were threatened by university authorities for supporting 'anti-establishment' candidates.

SMM's memorandum also highlighted the pitfalls of the e-voting system. The system was used last year in Universiti Putra Malaysia and is expected to be used in all the other universities this year.

"This system is the latest threat to the students who are entitled to the right of secret balloting while the authenticity of the polls outcome is questionable as the entire process of e-voting is not transparent," said Khoirol.

The coalition also urged Suhakam to probe the existence of money politics and how the election machinery is abused to sponsor 'pro-establishment' students.

Meeting vice-chancellors

Suhakam vice-chairperson Simon Sipaun, who received the memorandum, said the commission is expected to meet with university vice-chancellors before the campus elections. A similar meeting was held in June.

"The content of this memorandum is useful for us as material during the dialogue with the vice-chancellors," he said.

On the students requests, Siapun said he personally favoured the formation of a monitoring team .

"An independent observer such as Suhakam is important because we are not the interested party and we can make an independent assessment. But this is not the commission's stand, it's my personal view," he told reporters.

Campus elections have always been a concern for politicians because it is deemed as a microcosm of the Malaysian political scenario.

Since the reformasi movement erupted in 1998, critical students dubbed as 'anti-establishment candidates' have dominated the polls.

However, 'pro-establishment' candidates last year managed to make inroads into several 'anti-establishment' strongholds amid the implementation of tougher election rules and allegations of money politics.

It was alleged that the 'pro-establishment' students, known as 'Aspirasi Kerajaan', were being sponsored by Umno Youth and had received money as well as mobile phones.

Then education minister Musa Mohamed dismissed money politics in campus elections as a "small matter" which should not be blown out of proportion.