Electoral Law consultation calls for greater representation

Residents at Sunday’s public consultation on electoral reform have demanded greater representation through an increase in the number of directly-elected lawmakers, as well as a better system to regulate online campaigning ahead of next year’s Legislative Assembly (AL) elections.
The government has launched a 30-day public consultation period to collect opinions regarding the AL’s Electoral Law revision the results of which will be presented in a summary report to the assembly later this year. Thus far a total of six public sessions have been held.
More than 200 residents attended Sunday’s consultation, some of whom called for more directly-elected seats in the 33-member body. At present, just 14 of the 33 lawmakers are chosen via popular vote, while 12 are delegated by interest groups and seven are appointed by the chief executive.
“The issue of insufficient directly-­elected lawmakers has always bothered most of us residents,” said a female resident as cited by TDM. “Decisions made by them or by the appointed lawmakers are basically the same, since most of them are from the business sector.”
“Aren’t elections all about [justness] and fairness? I think it’s a very reasonable request to ask for more directly-elected lawmakers and to cut down on the number of appointed lawmakers,” another resident remarked according to TDM.
Other residents present at the public consultation criticized the government’s lack of oversight regarding online campaigning done by candidates during the election period.
One idea would be to introduce a reward system for people who report election irregularities to authorities, similar to a scheme that is in operation in Taiwan.
The director of the Public Administration and Civil Service Bureau, Kou Peng Kuan, informed attendees that his organization will start to work on the report to detail the responses from the consultation period, which he hopes to present to the AL in July. DB