EC needs to be more aggressive in curbing fake news to maintain credibility




File Bernama

KUALA LUMPUR, April 26 (Bernama) -- The Election Commission (EC) needs to be more aggressive in curbing the spread of fake news relating to the commission for fear that it will affect the people's confidence in view of the 14th General Election (GE14).

Former EC deputy chairman Datuk Wan Ahmad Wan Omar said this was to ensure that the credibility of the commission in handling the electoral process in the country could be maintained.

He said right now the EC had been linked and quoted in a variety of fake news spread by irresponsible parties with a certain agenda and that the situation should be controlled and curbed.

"The spread of fake news needs to be constrained. Right now, there is a lot of unverified news and this is a challenge to the EC to tackle it," he said in Bernama News Channel's Nine11 programme today.

With his experience of leading the general election operations in 1999, 2004, 2008 and 2013, as well as 42 by-elections over the years, Wan Ahmad said among the steps the EC had to take was to meet the voters.

"Among the fake news being spread right now is the allegation that there is room for contesting parties to cheat in the GE14. So, the EC has to meet the voters face-to-face and explain to them about the truth.

"The truth that the EC has a legal and legitimate election management system that there is no room for any irregularities," he said.

The EC has set the polling for the GE14 has been set on May 9, nomination on April 28 and early voting on May 5.

Commenting on the public complaint of Wednesday (May 9) being chosen as the polling day, Wan Ahmad, who had represented the EC to observe the general elections in 19 countries, said it was not a problem as some previous general elections were also held on weekdays.

"Even when polling was held on a weekday, history proved that the voter turnout was almost the same as on weekend, which is an average of 70 percent, except for GE13 when we recorded 84 percent voter turnout.

"So, do not make it an excuse not to fulfill our responsibility. After all, the May 9 polling day has already been declared a public holiday," he said.

-- BERNAMA