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LETTER | Witnessing the recent Malaysian election from Africa was full of suspense and excitement, much more than a soccer World Cup final.

It is time for the government to have new blood after 61 years with BN. I feel joyous and truly blessed as a Malaysian that our country's democracy is proven alive and we as the rakyat have exercised our right to change government using a relatively peaceful ballot box electoral process.

Malaysia can now stand tall to show to the world, especially the developing world, that a civilised governmental change process can take place peacefully in a democratically elected sphere if seriously respected and adhered to by everyone.

Kudos to Malaysia, set to go into Vision 2020 very soon, standing tall, even though with tough challenges ahead.

Witnessing the election process, one thing that comes to my mind,
is that Malaysia badly needs a hybrid election mechanism process, combining manual and online systems as practised in many countries already including Africa where I currently reside.

We the rakyat need an online voting system with its confidentiality, integrity and auditing features being transparent and verifiable. With this online mechanism, the rakyat can vote from any place and anywhere within stipulated time without much restriction and the need to go to the polling station physically.

Technology enables it with proven success and it is now left with us and the new political will among our newly-elected legislators to move forward with it. Please help to simplify things for the rakyat by avoiding long queues for senior citizens and the disabled being carried into the polling stations in this era of technology

This brings me to the next important point and I want to take this opportunity to persuade fellow Malaysian especially the beloved Dr Mahathir Mohamad 2.0 and his newly-appointed cabinet to consider balancing the Official Secrets Act with an Access to Information Act for the rakyat of Malaysia to have access to government-owned information openly and transparently with the exception of genuinely national security matters.

With this Access to Information Act, the rakyat can be assured that no information is intentionally hidden from them by the government of the day for political purposes or any other reason and as a result, Malaysia will have a much more well-informed and transparent knowledge society that decides based on facts presented to them.

This move is also complementary to repulsing the Anti-Fake News Act that is not so favourable to the rakyat and media and congruent to the UN Sustainability Development Goals No.16 which among others includes the right of access to information.

To those who are not very familiar with the Access to Information Act, in brief, it is an abiding law that recognises that the government and its linked agencies need to be more proactive in information dissemination through government information services and media liaison.

Let us together make Malaysia great again!


The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini .

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