ELECTION FOR LOCAL AUTHORITIES
A lot of calls have been made by many people or NGO's for direct elections for local authorities. The official stand of the BN Government is that local elections which were terminated in the early sixties will not be renewed. Those who calls for elections gave the reasons of better accountability and transparency.
Some of these people or NGO's also said the BN government is not prepared to have election as they are worried that all the urban seats will fall into opposition hands.
Basically, the BN government is no more worried that the urban areas will be won by opposition if ever election at local authority is allowed. This is proven as can be seen where MCA won quite a few urban areas in the last election, PJ Utara, Klang, Seremban, Melaka Tengah, etc.
My fear and I believe all of us should is that the urban areas will be dominated by the non Malays, be it BN or opposition and that the rural areas by Malay based parties like UMNO and PAS. This is definitely not healthy for the existing racial harmony that exists in our beloved country.
I have just come back from a visit to PAP Singapore. Singapore avoided this problem by having Group Representative Constituency (GRC) where 3 or 5 candidates from 3 different races stand under one ticket. By this method, the 3 major races are guaranteed to be represented. Hence, the fear of one race domination of local authorities can be avoided by this method.
Food for thought!
Lee Hwa Beng
30th August 2007