AL election law amendment | New Macau calls for greater candidate equality in elections

Jason Chao (left) and Scott Chiang

The New Macau Association (ANM) presented their consolidated suggestions from the consultation period for the Legislative Assembly (AL) Election Law amendment, which concluded on June 5.
Yesterday ANM presented three suggestions centered on the idea of greater equality for candidates during the AL election campaigning period. Specifically, these addressed the issue of selective campaigning on the premise of educational institutes, the government’s decision to halt the distribution of propaganda material from all groups to the electorate (before the campaign period), and an empowerment of supervisory bodies monitoring the expenditure of candidates.
During yesterday’s presentation ANM president Scott Chiang and vice president Jason Chao explicitly recognized that the objective on the consultation does not include a revision to the composition of deputies in the AL. As such, although New Macau maintains that neither appointed nor indirectly elected seats should continue to exist, they are not including criticism of the system in their scrutiny of the proposed amendment.
“We have to make it clear that this is not about the composition of the AL,” said Chiang, “even though those seats are not good for democracy or for representing the majority of citizens.”
However, the call for greater democratization in the MSAR was echoed throughout New Macau’s other suggestions for the electoral law amendment.
With regard to the proposed changes to the expenditure caps of candidates, ANM indicated that they welcome the decision by the government to lower the limit, but insisted that auditors and supervisory bodies need to be both empowered to act, and obligated to investigate.
“The main idea of having a cap on expenditure is to make it equal for candidates to run for office regardless of the resources that one has… one shouldn’t get an upper hand in the elections through having more resources,” said Jason Chao.
The current system of reporting and auditing is “too passive in fighting evasion of spending,” the New Macau leaders asserted.
Under the existing system, candidates are required to register expenditure that has been used for promotional activities during the campaigning period. However, New Macau claim that third parties with connections to certain candidates will often host and fund events which indirectly promote individuals standing for office.
The association wants to include such third party events in relevant candidate’s expenditure allowance, as is the case in Hong Kong, which they suggest should be paired with greater investigative powers for monitoring bodies.
“Supervisory committees in this respect should have both the duty and the means to investigate,” said Chiang. “It is too easy to dodge the regulations in Macau right now, and that can’t be stopped unless we spell it out in the law.”
Furthermore, the group argued that if government agencies or the Macau Foundation subsidize any such promotional activity, the host should be penalized for an abuse of public funding.
With regard to the alleged selective bias of education institutes, ANM are calling for either an “open door” policy or a “closed door” policy.
They suggest that education institutes “running on public funding may allow activity of candidates in the campaign period on the basis that all candidates can enjoy the same treatment.” Alternatively, they suggest that the organization may be permitted to choose not to allow such campaigning activity at all.
“We want an open door or a closed door policy, but it needs to be equal for all,” said Jason Chao. “We need to be explicit about a requirement for equal opportunity [in the law] and a criminal penalty should be introduced [for violators].”
Chao added that Macau Conscience, an activist organization co-founded by Chao, had previously requested the open door policy, addressing among others, Hou Kong School. However, their letters went unanswered.
“One school complained to the government,” explained Chiang. “They [the school] said that the effort to expose the school and its practices was, in itself, an election promotion activity… which is hilarious.”
The third suggestion concerns the government’s decision to stop printing and sending to every member of the electorate, the combined political platform of all groups. Campaign groups spend more money and effort trying to reach the same audience without the assistance of the government, which does little to reduce waste in the territory, ANM claim.
They propose that either the government restores its previous practice of printing and distributing material from all groups, or they provide the address information for eligible voters. They are keen to stress that other private information would be withheld from the groups in question.