JOHOR BARU, June 30 ― Election watchdog Bersih 2.0 said it is open to conducting online Simulated Recall Elections (SREL) on other parliamentary or even state constituencies, especially those formerly under Umno that saw many of its elected representatives defecting to the ruling Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) after the 2018 general election.
The coalition’s chairman Thomas Fann said the SREL sessions will be held under its ‘Sack or Keep‘ campaign, and at present, it is encouraging Umno to be proactive as an initiator.
He said besides PKR, of late, many have forgotten that Umno was the party that saw many of its elected representative defect after the 14th general election three years ago.
“It’s good that some Umno leaders such as Tan Sri Shahrir Abdul Samad and Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan have been actively looking at the recall system as an idea for their party.
“However, we will only work with registered organisations and political parties as only they can apply to be an initiator because we need to be sure that they will take the exercise seriously,” said Fann when contacted by Malay Mail today.
He was responding to a question on the need for the online SREL session for other constituencies after the launch of the Tebrau SREL that was broadcasted live on the Bersih 2.0 official Facebook page today.
Checks showed that after Umno lost the 2018 general election, 15 of its MPs had defected to Bersatu, now the leading party in the governing PN coalition.
This is not dismissing the state seats in the four former Pakatan Harapan (PH) state governments in Johor, Melaka, Perak and Kedah that have also fallen to PN.
Fann hoped that Umno, as one of the country’s largest political parties, will consider partaking in the Bersih 2.0’s online SREL for their lost constituencies.
He said the coalition is open to other constituencies to apply as well and said that Tebrau was the first to undergo the online SREL session as it met all the criteria, having been approached by Johor PKR.
“Any constituency that saw a defection from its elected representative can be considered. In fact the next one could be a state seat in Melaka,” he said.
Fann pointed out that Bersih 2.0’s SREL session will cost the coalition each time a campaign is started.
“Each constituency would cost around RM5,000 to start and if it runs the whole course, it can go up to RM35,000.
“We don't want to end up starting many but end up going nowhere,” said Fann on the costs involved.
Proponents of recall elections say an elected representative who changes parties after an election should have to get a new mandate from his or her voters to prove that they support the switch.
The process, which is provided for in a number of countries, has been proposed numerous times since the PH federal government fell in February when MPs from Bersatu and PKR quit the coalition during the Sheraton Move.
