Projek BERES: Settling electoral issues once and for all

First there were the Bersih rallies, then there were voter education groups like Tindak Malaysia that demanded an improvement to the electoral system in the country.

Today a group of Malaysians are continuing this groundswell with a new electoral reform initiative, called Projek BERES (which means settle, or complete, in Malay).

BERES is the acronym for “Blueprint for Effective Reform of the Electoral System”, and the project claims that it was not interested in the “political blame game". Instead, it claims to be able to present to the ruling government, the opposition and nation a “comprehensive, ready-to-use blueprint for electoral reform that is meaningful”.

The citizen-initiated project consists of over 40 volunteering lawyers, political scientists, auditors, librarians, artists, physicists in and outside Malaysia.

“Our focus is not on uncovering fraud and changing past results – we will leave this to other civil movements to fight out with the authorities – but in how to strengthen our electoral process. Our approach is simple. Identify problems, offer solutions. In all, we now have 80 recommendations,” said Projek BERES in an article about the initiative.

Among its first recommendations is to “hit the reset button and completely remap electoral constituencies”. This, it said, was to ensure each vote is as equal as possible under current socio-political circumstances.

“We want to increase Parliamentary seats to 230 and distribute to States using two methodologies: Firstly, federal seats for each state must reasonably reflect voter population. Secondly, Sabah and Sarawak seats must increase in accordance with the ratio of seats in the 1963 Malaysia Agreement.”

Another major proposal from Projek BERES is to have an Election Ombudsman to police the Election Commission (EC) to ensure it complies with its Constitutional mandate.

The Election Ombudsman will monitor the EC and will address complaints on the conduct of the Commission and instruct it to comply, as well as review regulations and procedures in how an election is carried out.

In a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page, Projek BERES explained that unlike Bersih or Tindak Malaysia, its focus was on legislation.

The movement would reviewing electoral and other laws, including Constitution as well as best practices worldwide, the group will present their recommendations to the authorities.