Students who are generally considered as anti-establishment maintained their dominance over the student councils in Malaysia's top universities despite restrictions imposed during the campus elections which concluded yesterday.

Under the new election rules, campaigning period was shortened to two days from the previous one week, and candidates were no longer allowed to contest the elections in teams.

The elections results for the country's top three universities - Universiti Malaya (UM), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) - showed that more than two-thirds of the seats contested were clinched by those regarded as anti-establishment.

In UM, the anti-establishment group won 36 out of 48 seats. They also emerged victorious in USM Penang main campus where they won 13 out of 19 seats.

In UKM, anti-establishment students almost made an almost clean sweep of the students council seats by winning 31 out of 33 seats. They also emerged victorious in Universiti Putra Malaysia - winning 35 out of 39 seats.

In University Technology Malaysia, the anti-establishment group won 25 out of 45 seats.

However, pro-establishment students made a clean sweep of the 27 seats in Universiti Utara Malaysia and took all the 36 available seats in Universiti Teknologi Mara elections.

Muslim students

While anti-establishment students are sometimes labelled as pro-opposition, not all are directly link to opposition parties.

However, most are not supported by the university administration or aligned to any government-backed organisation.

This group also consists of those critical of the state of affairs in the universities.

They are also critical of the government as a result of problems affecting them on campus. According to them, the universities' inefficient registration system and recurring delay in obtaining study loans are part and parcel of government's inefficiency.

Some of these groups are believed to be linked to vocal Muslim students organisations such as the Persatuan Mahasiswa Islam (PMI) in their respective universities. PMI is linked to Gabungan Mahasiswa Islam Semenanjung (Gamis) which has close ties with opposition party PAS.

Others are said to be linked to progressive youth groups like the Democratic Students and Youths Movement (Dema).

These groups are highly critical of government policies such as the restrictive Universities and Universities College Act and the Internal Security Act.

Unfair to label candidates

According to UM Islamic Students Society president Mohd Izwan Md Yusof, it was unfair to label student activists as either 'pro-opposition' or 'pro-government'.

"There are no such divisions," he said, adding that if there was support from 'outsiders', it would be from the Students Affairs Department itself, as it allegedly sponsored certain candidates in the elections.

Some 200 UM students handed a memorandum to vice-chancellor Anuar Zaini Zain last week to protest against the alleged mishandling of the election process by the deputy vice chancellor (students affairs) Prof Hashim Yaacob, who is also the head of UM elections committee.

They claimed that 10 students were unfairly disqualified, but those who were favoured by the administration were not punished, although they committed the same election offences.

Meanwhile, a USM source said that there was no outside 'interference' during the elections. The contest was between those who were supported by the Student Affairs Department and those who were fighting for students rights, he said.

Those allegedly sponsored by the department were believed to be pro-establishment and supported the status quo.