Ambiga to Putrajaya: Provide no-strings-attached funding to Bersih 2.0
KUALA LUMPUR: Former Bersih 2.0 chairman, Ambiga Sreenevasan has called upon the government to provide a no-strings-attached funding for the electoral reform watchdog to conduct electoral monitoring.
“They do so much work on the ground for election-watching.
“My own view is it is time for the government to fund Bersih, not necessarily fully,” she said in a speech during a Bersih fundraising dinner in Petaling Jaya last night.
She who was former Malaysian Bar president added that the Bar was independent despite receiving funds from the government.
“So (the funding) must be no-strings-attached because the kind of work that they (Bersih) do […] there is a lot of work to do.
“So I would like to see this government, despite Bersih’s criticism, say that they will give them some form of funding so they can carry on their very important work,” she said.
She said that Bersih would be occupied with monitoring the Sarawak state polls.
She also spoke about the possibility of conducting election redelineation exercise in light of the constitutional amendment that reduced the voting age from 21 to 18.
“I was hoping that there was something in the constitution that said if you have unusual circumstances like that, you can have a redelineation.
“(But) there is nothing there. The constitution doesn’t cater for the lowering of the voting age, but if there is an increase in seats in Parliament, then that’s possible,” she said.
On another matter she said she wished she was able to stand in her yellow Bersih T-shirt at Dataran Merdeka.
“The one thing they never allowed Bersih to do all these years (is that) they did not allow us to go in our yellow T-shirts and stand in Dataran Merdeka.
“I would like to see Bersih do that. We need to reclaim that ground. That is a symbolic gesture.
“I want to stand in Dataran Merdeka in my Bersih T-shirt,” she said.
