KUCHING: Sarawak Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) called on the Election Commission (EC) to allow political gatherings or ceramah in both urban and rural areas, with strict adherence to Covid-19 standard operating procedures, ahead of the 12th Sarawak state election.
The CSOs said for house-to-house visits and face-to-face leafleting, the number of campaigners should be restricted to a small group, about three persons and they should not enter any houses or rooms of the longhouses.
CSOs said a memorandum has been sent to EC chairman Datuk Abdul Ghani Salleh for the state election to be held in an equal, free and fair manner.
It said the EC has the power and able to request government-owned television stations and radio broadcast companies to provide designated slots to all contesting parties and independents for party political broadcasts.
Apart from that, debates between potential Chief Minister candidates or party leaders need to be organised and telecast on state television and radio channels at least twice during the campaign period.
The EC and Federal government need to instruct private broadcast media outlets to play a greater role during this election by organising discussions for candidates from all parties where local issues are discussed and candidates' views can be aired.
Meanwhile, telecommunication companies play a more constructive role by granting Sarawak registered phone numbers with unlimited data usage for the period of the election campaign to facilitate the sharing and receiving of campaign broadcasts by political parties and candidates through online and social media platforms.
CSOs also urged the EC to finalise and release the SOPs for the state polls in Sarawak as soon as possible as there are an estimated 1,260,000 voters in the state, and reaching the rural districts is a known challenge.
As such, the SOPs need to be issued and broadcast much earlier than in the Melaka state election when it was only released on nomination day.
"We understand and accept that certain restrictions and limits need to be in place for physical campaigning in the new norm to keep everyone safe, but we do not accept inappropriate measures that effectively deny all political parties and candidates to meet and greet voters in a safe manner."
"It is also blatantly unfair for the EC and the Federal Government to allow the caretaker GPS State Government access to voters via their TV Sarawak channel on Astro Awani while all other parties are denied on-air media access."
"We are also of the view that innovative protocols are necessary in Sarawak due to the difficulties and peculiarities of our constituencies - many of which are geographically large and have sporadic and inconsistent telecommunication facilities and non-existent internet coverage."
CSOs also called on the EC to extend postal voting to some 250,000 Sarawakian voters who live and work in the peninsula and Sabah or via special advance voting to allow more Sarawakians to cast their votes.
They said the EC is also urged to extend the time for online applications for voters residing in neighbouring Singapore and Brunei to vote by post.
"We want the EC to extend the time for online applications to be a postal voter for this category of Sarawakian voters to three days before nomination day."
"We hope that the concerns and recommendations raised in our memorandum will be considered by your good office in the spirit of making this very important event in our state a safe and inclusive election for all Sarawakians wherever they may be."