Election reforms pressure group Bersih has called on the Election Commission to reform electoral financing systems as the present one was deemed irrelevant.

Bersih, or Coalition for Free and Fair Elections, said such reforms were necessary to ensure that elections are held on a level playing field.

The coalition explained that present laws cannot prevent over-spending because it accounts for individual candidates and not political parties.

The current cap under the Elections Offences Act 1954 is RM200,000 for a parliamentary seat and RM100,000 for a state seat.

“If parties are taken as an accounting unit, Barisan Nasional, which ran in 219 parliamentary seats and 504 state seats during the last general election, could only legally spend RM94.2 million,” said the coalition in a statement today.

But since the caps are calculated based on individual candidates, Bersih argues that parties could spend much more than the cap on the overall campaign.

“Should there be any cap, it should be on the contributions rather than the expenses. A cap on donations can limit the ability of the rich and business owners in purchasing influence,” added Bersih.

Funds from companies

As such, the coalition echoes the recent call by Federation of Public Listed Companies Bhd president Megat Najmuddin Khas for a system to allow transparent corporate sponsorship of political parties.

Megat said public-listed companies should be allowed to provide funding to the country’s political organisations, as long as there is a transparent and accountable system of doing so.

He told reporters this after the launch of the Transparency International (TI) “Global Corruption Barometer 2007" on Thursday. Megat is both Umno disciplinary board member and TI exco member.

Concurring, Bersih said strict regulations were important to ensure transparent records of all donations and contributions to the electoral campaign, whether in cash or kind.

“This would allow the public and the media to check if the government or politicians return ‘favours’ after the elections,” said Bersih.

The coalition also suggested that state financing of elections be introduced for all political parties (ruling and opposition) so that they will be less dependent on private funders.