Opposition-backed Coalition For Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih) has called on the ruling BN to immediately announce the date for the next general election.

"We are asking the prime minister to fix a date. We no longer want people to keep guessing the election date," Bersih committee member and PKR information chief Tian Chua told a press conference today.

"It is odd that this year, many countries are preparing for their elections. But (Prime Minister) Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, despite all his promises of a more transparent administration, still keeps the people guessing on the election date," he said.

Tian Chua said it was common practice in democratic countries for the government to announce the election date ahead. He added that setting an election date would allow both the opposition and the ruling government to better prepare for it.

"Hence, the government must fix the election date now. At the same time, it must resolve all the teething problems in our electoral system so that we can have free and fair elections," he said.

March on Nov 10

The next general election must be held before March 21, 2009.

Tian Chua added that Bersih would organise a march to Istana Negara in Kuala Lumpur on Nov 10 to press on for fair elections through its three demands; the cleaning up of electoral rolls, abolish postal voting and enforce the use of indelible ink.

"We hope the government can carry out these tasks before it holds the next general election. The election itself must be carried out in a fair and just manner so that Malaysians can be convinced of the steps taken by the government to improve transparency in the administration of the country," he said.

Bersih, Tian Chua said, would also seek the assistance of international monitoring groups such as the Asian Coalition for Free and Fair Elections, the Carter Center and the Commonwealth Election Monitoring Group to observe the elections.

"Come election time, we are quite sure they would be interested to send their observers here," he said.

Equal access

"If you want to have fair choice, you must have equal access to the rights to vote for your government and to form a government. Issues such as press freedom is still of great importance," added Tian Chua, pointing out that Malaysia has dropped to 124th placing in a world press freedom index released by Reporters Without Borders recently.

"Abdullah pledged to free the press. This same organisation (Reporters Without Borders) named Mahathir an enemy of the press. Today Abdullah has showed a friendly face to the public, but the index has dropped lower. We hope Abdullah is not called an enemy of the press as well," he said.

Under Abdullah, a total of five newspapers were suspended one indefinitely for exhibiting religious insensitivity.

The report cited the recent arrests of political bloggers as a big factor that contributed to the drop in Malaysia's ranking this year.

Among those present at the press conference were PKR secretary-general Khalid Ibrahim, DAP MP Teresa Kok and PKR treasurer-general William Leong