PAS has urged the Election Commission (EC) not to divide and categorise voters according to their race, following former EC chief Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman’s suggestion to update the electoral role every three years.

In a statement yesterday, PAS information chief Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man said that the breakdown of voters by race has done “more harm than good to the unity of Malaysians” for five decades.

“This is because Malaysians, the government, and especially politicians will discuss the country’s issues from a racial viewpoint like it is done now,” said Tuan Ibrahim.

“The breakdown of voters by race carried out by the EC is believed to be done according to each BN component party, which are all parties based on race in order to facilitate each party component to keep their respective racial votes,” he said.

Thus, he stated that it is time for the EC to revamp the system to instead categorise the voters by their age or sex as official data.

Based on such data, political parties and politicians will converse about the needs of the community according to their age, and automatically address issues concerning each race.

“This can decrease the chances of certain parties who deliberately use religion and racial sentiments to win votes and create antagonism among the races as a cheap political gimmick in the future,” he said, adding that it would not be hard to implement as the information is readily available on each voter’s identification card.

Tuan Ibrahim further urged for the electoral system to provide the percentage of votes obtained by each party, to avoid manipulation of redrawing votes, and for the government to provide funds to each party contesting.