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Restore full democracy to DBKL, not give “jobs to the boys and girls” Media Statement by Fong Kui Lun (Kuala Lumpur, Wednesday): DAP welcomes the call to set up a City Hall Council but insists that all members of the Council and the Mayor must be elected by the people. Full democracy and accountability to the people must be restored in Kuala Lumpur.      It was reported that the UMNO Federal Territory Liaison Committee has presented a memorandum to the Prime Minister calling for the formation of a City Hall Council and to reduce the powers of the KL Mayor to “nothing more than a ceremonial head – a salesman for Kuala Lumpur to overseas and fronting cultural events.” (NST, 7.6.2005)   The report also claims that UMNO politicians in Kuala Lumpur were unhappy that they had no role in the City Hall, and hoped that “the involvement of politicians in the proposed City Hall Council would result in policies consistent with political strategies.”      DAP welcomes the call to set up a City Hall Council but insists that all members of the Council and the Mayor must be elected by the people. Full democracy and accountability to the people must be restored in Kuala Lumpur.       However, it is unfortunate that the UMNO FT memorandum is meant to create councillorships “for the boys and girls” and to ensure that the City Hall is totally subservient to UMNO’s hegemony.   It is not about restoring the long deprived democratic rights of the citizens to elect all the three tiers of governments.   While elections for local councils in other parts of Malaysia were suspended in 1965 and abolished with the introduction of Local Government Act 1976, Kuala Lumpur lost its democratically elected local authority in 1961.     The then Federal Government used KL’s status as the federal capital to deprive the democratic rights of its citizens. In 1961, fearing that the ruling Alliance Party’s grip on KL would be eroded in the municipal elections, the government decided to transfer authority from an elected council to an appointed Federal Commissioner, who was responsible solely to the Interior Minister.   An Advisory Board consisting of eleven members, who had no authority whatsoever over the decision of the executive, “assisted” the Commissioner (now called Datuk Bandar).   Not only did Kuala Lumpur did not have its own local council, its citizens also lost the rights to vote for members of the second-tier State Assembly.     KL was originally part of Selangor. In the 1969 elections, the Alliance Party won only 14 of the 28 seats in the Selangor assembly. This resulted in a deadlock. The opposition won most of their seats in the vicinity of KL. The Tun Razak government, determined to prevent any future possibility of losing the Selangor legislature, decided to turn Kuala Lumpur into a federal territory in February 1974, a few months before the general elections of that year.   It is time for all of us to rethink the structure of governance in Kuala Lumpur. DAP strongly urges the full restoration of democracy in the City Hall to pave the way for a more accountable and better governed city.     (8/6/2005)   * Fong Kui Lun,  DAP National Treasurer and MP for Bukit Bintang