Penang Watch

1st Councilors List from PR state government disappointing9 Penangites took time off to speak out about the controversial 1st Councilors' list put out by PRstate government of Penang-refer also to hot discussion in Susan Loone's blog here. All major media turned up-including Berita Harian and Utusan. The press release is attached below:

Press Statement (Apr 18th, Friday)
NGOs’ disappointments on the Penang Councilors line-up
The Councilors lists for MPPP and MPSP as released by Exco in charge of Local Government Chow Kon Yeow, did not live up the high expectations put on it before by many civil society members. Weaknesses which are identified are:
1.The continuation of BN practice to apportion Councilors posts among the parties; Giving jobs to the `boys' instead of giving the posts on merits, has been a tried a failed method under BN; Weak Councils had given rise to `Longkang Assemblypersons/MPs' problems;
2.The lack of transparency in the selection process; Even when elections cannot be held straight away for the Councilors the State Government can still adopt an open selections system (open invites, open criteria, open process, open lists of candidates etc) compared to the closed door selections used now; It is not known if the candidates are selected on political or merit/capacity considerations;
3.The lack of balance among the candidates-notably among the Councilors there is an under-representations of :
* women-about 3 out of 20/21 Councilors in each Council,compared unfavourably with the generally agreed 1/3 targets for women representation;
* civil society members-only 3-4 out of 20/21 Councilors in each Council; This compared poorly to Perak’s target of appointing 1/3 of Councilors from civil society;
* no appointment of Councilors in proportion to the vote shares of all parties as advocated by DAP in the 3rd Vote campaign; The Penang (and Selangor) policy compare unfavourably to Perak’s policy to accept Opposition members based on performance records and capability;
* working class –no reps from unions, hawkers were appointed despite earlier promise;
4.There is an over-representation of Chambers of Commerce reps to the Councils (4 out of 7 civil society positions)-which present a very unbalanced Councils with potentials for conflict of interests since Chambers of Commerce members are often involved in applications of licenses to Councls; In contrast the lack of representations from house buyers, residents associations, consumers etc who form the bulk of the Penang residents, means that the imbalance would cause injustice to the people;
5.The appointment of 4 members of civil society members to MPPP and 3 to MPSP mean that the earlier promise of appointing 5 each to the 2 Penang's Councils cannot be kept-a very bad start for the Councils! The new State Government should not squander the public’s trust on them by making blatant mistakes like this;
6.The appointment of an Assemblyperson to MPPP is a step backward when all states except Selangor under BN, did not allow Assemblypersons to also serve in City Councils; There is already an Exco in charge of Councils -so the appointment of another Assemblyperson to Council is an unnecessary concentration of power in a few hand;
Our appeals:
1. That the State Government consider amending the Councilors’ appointments by making adjustments to improve the line-up so as to get the best possible team to serve Penang residents;
2. That an open appointment system is adopted for future appointment of Councilors –if local government elections cannot be implemented yet;
3. That a road map as well as time-line be publicized on how local government elections will be implemented; Preferably the local government elections should be implemented within the term of this state government; If there were any legal prohibitions there should be an attempt to adopt another system of appointing Councilors which bring in the benefits of competition, meritocracy, and good governance.
4. There should be transparency in working towards implementing local government elections -which is a platform of the DAP and PKR. The public should be taken into confidence in the issues facing the state government in implementing local government elections :
 Legal issues –what are the legal opinions on the feasibility of local government elections under current legal framework? Are there legal avenues to go around some inhibitions?
 Political issues –can the BN be persuaded to amend the laws to enable local government elections given that they stand to benefit from such elections now compared to previously? Can PAS be persuaded to allow local government elections in states governed by them?
 Public awareness/education on local government elections?

Endorsers: Penang Watch, SOS(Save Ourselves), Bus Users Group, MAFREL-Northern Region, SUARAM, JIM, Malaysian Voters Union，Pusat Khidmat Pekerja Tanjung, Tanjung Bunga Residents Association