THE premature end to the tribunal on alleged misconduct by election commissioners during the last elections leaves a bitter after taste for those seeking answers, said Fahmi Fadzil.

“While the public at large may accept that the Election Commission (EC) commissioners in question have since quit their posts, it does not satisfy our need for answers on how the redelineation process was allowed to take place in the manner we witnessed.

“The public needs to know how is it that the kind of gerrymandering – ultimately aimed to keep Barisan Nasional in power – can be stopped from recurring in the future,” the Lembah Pantai MP told The Malaysian Insight today.

“More importantly, the public needs to know what are the steps that the current EC will take to correct the imbalances caused by that redelineation exercise in order to realise the principle of ‘one person, one vote’,” said the PKR communications director.

The tribunal investigating allegations of misconduct during the 14th general election by six former EC commissioners decided not to continue today because the matter had become purely academic.

Tribunal chairman and retired Federal Court judge Steve Shim said the six people in question had already stepped down and that public interest would not be served to spend more resources on the matter.

Meanwhile, Sunway University political scientist Dr Wong Chin Huat said having the tribunal itself has sent a strong signal to all public servants that they will be held accountable for their actions.

“While the Attorney-General’s Chambers has managed to convince only two out of five tribunal panel members, and not a majority to pursue the proper tribunal, it has nevertheless sent a strong signal to all public servants that they may be accountable some day for actively betraying their mandates or passively abdicating their duties.

“The days of impunity for high-level misconduct is over and future public servants may not be so lucky,” said Wong.

He said the previous commissioners, including the former chairman, had escaped this process by resigning.

“Even if they had made contributions earlier in their services as civil servants, their last stint at the EC would be the one that defines their career records.

“As such, I applaud the attorney-general, Tommy Thomas and all parties for their efforts in various ways to hold the other six accountable.” – May 24, 2019.