SHAH ALAM - The Coalition for Clean and Fair Eections (Bersih) has expressed regret at Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim for not mentioning the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) to opposition members of Parliament in the re-tabling of Budget 2023 in the Dewan Rakyat on Friday.
The coalition explained that the action was clearly against the principles of Malaysia Madani championed by the Unity Government led by the Tambun MP, especially in the implementation of reforms.
He added that the government and the opposition should sit together and negotiate to bring about a law that will ensure fair allocations.
"Perikatan Nasional (PN) with 74 MPs represents 4,666,529 voters or 30 per cent of the total number of voters in the 15th General Election (GE15).
"Constraining this CDF is disrespecting the choice and rights of voters and their representatives," it said in a statement on Saturday.
Bersih added that the provision was necessary to provide services to their parliamentary constituencies more efficiently, including covering any development needs that are not included in the federal or state government programs.
It explained that the CDF to the opposition should not be an issue because MPs from the government bloc receive an allocation of RM1.3 million per year which is an increase in costs by only 0.024 per cent or RM96.2 million from the 2023 Budget amounting to RM386 billion.
According to Bersih, the CDF is actually seen as a tool to punish and pressure the parties from providing proper services.
"Such tactics have been used before to tempt opposition representatives to jump and realign the party as we saw after the fall of Barisan Nasional (BN) after May 9, 2018, until the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Ismail Sabri's government and Pakatan Harapan (PH) on September 13, 2021.
"The tactic of suppressing the opposition is not effective every time because PH remained excellent as the opposition and even won GE14 without any CDF allocation," he said.
Therefore, it is time for a peace negotiation across political parties to be held to set the rules of fair competition between the government and the opposition, so that there is no denial in an undemocratic way.
"If Anwar does not take the first step, the Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Hamzah Zainuddin should prepare a private bill (RUU) for equitable CDF allocation," said Bersih.