Despite the boycott by a number of key student activist groups, the Bar Council has nevertheless urged for a clean and fair campus elections to be held on Thursday.

The legal profession body, which represents close to 12,000 lawyers, expressed deep concern over a series of reported irregularities as well as incidences of student activists being threatened or assaulted in the run-up to the polls.

The varsity elections this year have been marred by boycotts by the 'anti-establishment' camp in major universities to protest against alleged bias by the campus authorities, leaving only Universiti Malaya and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia the two major varsities to see a fight on polling day.

"The council will draws attention of the authorities and urges them to provide a more transparent and fairer environment for the campus elections," its chairperson, Yeo Yang Poh, told malaysiakini.

"Based on the information given to us, which is similar to the one given to the Human Rights Commission , there are serious issues that should be addressed and certain problems need to be resolved," he added.

Under govt control

Representatives from the Bar Council led by Yeo met with four members of the Malaysian Students Solidarity (SMM) - a coalition represent eight national student bodies which is linked to the anti-establishment camp - at the council's headquarters in Kuala Lumpur last Friday.

Apart from Yeo, human rights lawyer Amer Hamzah Arshad and the young lawyers committee representative's Will Fung were at the two-hour meeting.

Over the past few years, the government and campus authorities have overtly backed a pro-establishment student faction to stamp out anti-government forces in campuses nationwide.

The pro-government forces, with the help from the authorities, have progressively knocked out anti-establishment students from the students representative councils, including varsities where anti-government forces were once dominant.

With the boycott, almost all the universities have now fallen under the control of pro-government students.

Democracy for students too

Among other issues that were discussed at the Bar Council were the controversial implementation of the electronic voting system, cases of physical assaults against student activists and the restrictive Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA).

"The Bar Council is against certain provisions in the UUCA which unduly restrict the freedom of association and freedom of expression of students. While the Malaysian society is moving toward a freer and more democratic culture, it is important the same applied to students," Yeo said.

SMM secretary Ginie Lim said the meeting was the first between student activists and the council.

"Many things that happened in the campus had not been widely reported in the media and we hope this meeting will help improved the council's understanding on students issues," she said, .

She also hoped that the two parties would explore a long-term working relationship especially in regard to legal assistance for students to fight court cases that involved public interest.