The G25 has urged the government to introduce much-awaited political funding reform to the country.
The civil society organisation, composed of influential Malay luminaries, said reform is essential in order to erase money politics, which has plagued the Malaysian political system for so long.
“As everyone knows, money politics lies at the root of all the big corruption scandals in the country. This is also evident from the way politicians hop from party to party,” the G25 said in a statement, today.
It said the urgency for reform was triggered by a statement by then-Barisan Nasional leader, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who said as there is no law in Malaysia against foreign donations to Malaysian political parties, the money which was deposited into his personal account in AmBank, which he had claimed was a ‘donation’ from a Middle East royal personality for his political use, is not illegal.
At the same time, Najib agreed that there should be a law to regulate political financing and to make it illegal for Malaysian politicians to receive foreign donations, the organisation said.
G25 added that the Pekan MP had followed up the matter by appointing a Cabinet minister to head a committee to study the matter.
“Unfortunately, when the report was submitted to Cabinet, there was no consensus on accepting its recommendations for reform,” it said.
The G25 added that Pakatan Harapan won the May 2018 General Election (GE14) on the strength of a reform manifesto which included a law to regulate political financing and to make it clean and accountable.
However, the PH government too got side-tracked by other issues resulting in the concern over money politics being side-lined.
“G25 will not allow the issue to be forgotten. We would like to bring it up again because our group had worked hard to produce a report with recommendations on specific measures to prohibit foreign funding for political parties, to set limits on the amount that private individuals and corporate organisations can donate, and to suggest the procedures by which political parties should publish their accounts, without disclosing the names of the donors”.
The organisation said its recommendations also include institutional changes to ensure an independent system of regulating political financing.
The G25 said its report is among the documents that were studied by the Cabinet committee under the Najib government.
“Although (the Cabinet Committee) recommendations differed from ours and were more accommodating and liberal on the amount of each donation, the committee, however, did agree that foreign donations must be prohibited”.
It also agreed that there should be transparency in reporting the donations for public information. As regards institutional changes recommended in the G25 report to ensure the independence of the regulating mechanism, the Cabinet Committee felt that these could be taken up at a later stage because they required major amendments to legislation.
“We were told to be patient as reforms should evolve gradually, one step at a time. But patience has its limits as we see the country is sliding back into the bad old days,” it said.
G25 said it would like to propose that as the groundwork for the reform on political financing has already been laid, there is no reason for the present government to ignore it altogether.
All it needs to do is to appoint a committee to review the previous Cabinet Committee report and make the necessary refinements, it said.
“We in G25 are fully aware that political parties had to spend a lot of money to field candidates in elections and that political donations are commonly allowed in all countries practising the electoral system of choosing their government.
“At the same time, in all the major democracies, to ensure fair play and a level playing field in the political contest, they have strict rules on transparency and accountability by requiring the donations be declared, and the accounts of political parties be independently audited and published for public information.”
The G25 said foreign donations are not allowed because they can put elected leaders into a compromising position regarding their domestic and foreign policies and are therefore a threat to national security.
It added that many countries also limit the amount of local donations so as to protect the public from corrupt politicians.
“In the G25 report, we looked into the electoral practices of other countries and their legislations. In making our recommendations for regulating the system of political financing in our country, we have identified the best practices around the world.
“There is enough study available to make the change. We would like to see the government taking the leap into making the change happen. G25 therefore calls upon this government to table a bill this year to Parliament to pass a law on regulating political financing and making the elections free from the evils of money politics,” it said. – NST