The pro-Mahasiswa student group today announced that it will boycott Universiti Malaya's (UM) students representative council elections despite performing well in past campus elections.

UM's pro-Mahasiswa chairperson Muhammad Syazmee Sapian announced this, citing frustration over the university's students representative council body, which had been relegated to an "association" with little powers.

"The reality today is that PMUM is unlike in the 1970s where it had power to manage the finances, programmes, activities and welfare of students.

"Now it is completely controlled by the Students and Alumni Affairs Department (Hepa)," Syazmee said in a statement today.

Pro-Mahasiswa is seen as anti-establishment and a rival to the establishment-friendly Pro-Aspirasi group. This divide is seen in most public universities.

In UM's last campus polls Pro-Mahasiswa won 21 seats to Pro-Aspirasi's 16 seats while there were three other independents.

The Pro-Mahasiswa had taken a radical approach, renaming itself from the UM Students Representative Council (MPPUM) to UM Students Association (MPUM), to the university management's chagrin.

MPUM was the old name of the UM students representative council when student activism was widespread in the 1970s.

Failure to reform electoral system

The Pro-Mahasiswa controlled MPUM had in February this year also organised a talk for then opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim ( photo ) on campus despite a lockdown by the university management, prompting disciplinary actions against its members.

Explaining Pro-Mahasiswa's decision to boycott the campus students body elections this time, Syazmee also cited the failure to reform the electoral system despite joint-discussions with the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) and the university's management.

Syazmee also cited what he said was an election system that was not transparent, such as the e-voting system.

"More recently, they (university management) introduced a voting system through (mobile) applications without any discussion with the students.

"After the application was introduced, there were many flaws and problems and the plan was finally aborted," he lamented.

Syazmee said despite the energy and resources poured into campaigning for the campus polls, they would ultimately become members of a council that is constrained and controlled by the university's management.

"If this is what the campus election and PMUM is about, then we are disappointed at how the MU management has managed student development in the university.

"We will not be involved in this campus election as we have a bigger and more important agenda than the campus election," Syazmee said.

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