PAKATAN Harapan hopes to enact laws to govern political financing before the next elections, said Deputy Legal Affairs Minister Hanipa Maidin.

“The prime minister has agreed in principle to this law and the Attorney-General’s Chambers has been tasked with drafting it,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the 2018 Anti-Corruption Summit in Kuala Lumpur.

Hanipa declined to set a date on which the laws would be enacted. 

“There are as many as 100 laws that we want to amend and we need to prioritise.”

He said the government was in the midst of studying the German parliamentary system where political parties obtained funding from the government. 

Earlier, Hanipa told a forum that the government’s priority was to “save the country first” when he was asked why the new government had not yet reformed political funding laws.

Universiti Malaya’s Prof Dr Edmund Terence Gomez had taken the deputy minister to task on the matter.
 
“When Najib Razak first became prime minister in 2009, he too had promised to reform political funding but 10 years later it is still not done. How long more do we need to wait?” he said.

Gomez said recommendations had already been given to the government about the need to reform political funding. 

Another panellist, Bersih 2.0’s Yap Swee Seng said while the new government should be given time to enact the law, it was fundamental to ending corruption in politics. 

“The recent by-elections and the PKR elections show that money politics is seeping into Pakatan Harapan. If it is not dealt with – by setting up the institutions, laws and enforcement agencies – Pakatan could become BN 2.0,” said Yap. 

The session was moderated by Transparency International president Akhbar Satar. – October 30, 2018.