The absence of certain laws has affected elections in Malaysia to the extent that they were deemed unfair to contesting political parties, said Election Commission (EC) chairperson Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman today.

Appearing to choose his words carefully, the EC chief said at a function in Sabah that the lack of such election laws has given the "impression" of an uneven playing field among the contestants.

He said the 'weaknesses' in the electoral system, including the absence of a specific allocation to prevent the misuse of government resources, should be dealt with in stages.

Abdul Rashid also pointed out that there is no law which enables the EC to 'control' the media or its coverage during polls. The government-controlled mainstream media has been accused of being biased against the opposition.

"There are also no laws to control the resources and finances of parties to be used in a balanced manner and there are no specific laws to control the problem of vote buying either," he was quoted as saying by Bernama.

The chairperson was speaking at Universiti Malaysia Sabah's main campus in Kota Kinabalu. He later participated in a question-and-answer session on the democratic process in Malaysian elections.

Abdul Rashid was criticised for his handling of last year's polls, with the commission coming under fire for a number or irregularities.

Under pressure, the EC chief said he would welcome a royal commission to probe the "fiasco" in the polls but this was dismissed by the government.

Later, a motion by the opposition to impeach him in Parliament was rejected by the House speaker as it was considered subjudice to the election petitions filed in court. Since then, all but one of the election petitions have been disposed of.

No fraud in 2004 polls

On last year's general election, he said there were no cases of fraud in the electoral process.

He conceded there were weaknesses in the management of the polls but stressed that it did not affect the principle of a free, fair and transparent elections.

As for Sabah, he said the state had witnessed 'excessive' politicking in the past but things are much more calmer and stable now.

"What we see now in Sabah is rapid development which will definitely bring good to all the people," he added.

At the question-and-answer session, he was asked if the 'cooling-off period' after nominations - which allows candidates to pull out within three days after nomination day - paved the way for corruption as seen in Sabah where many independent and opposition candidates withdrew from contesting in last year's polls.

However, Abdul Rahman dismissed this and claimed that most of the candidates withdrew after realising they had no chance of winning.

Automatic registration

The EC chairperson also revealed that the commission will propose to the government to formulate a law for it to carry out automatic voter registration for citizens who reach 21 years of age.

He said the move is important since there are many who are eligible to register as voters but are not doing so.

He noted that to date 2.4 million Malaysians, including 250,000 from Sabah, have turned 21 but have yet to register with the commission.

"We don't know why they are not registering, so we are preparing a proposal to be submitted to the government to formulate a law pertaining to automatic registration," he added.

He said current laws do not make it mandatory for eligible voters to register but "we are asking them to execute their responsibility as voters".