DAP Socialist Youth (DAPSY) for Federal Territory is strongly disagree with the opinion from KL Mayor Datuk Mhd Amin Nordin Abdul Aziz where during an interview with radio station BFM earlier, he made a remark that there would be a discrepancy between the federal and the state level if the post of mayor filled by someone from the opposition.
The comment of Datuk Amin is no doubt a violation of democratic spirit. If there is an election of mayor then whoever obtained the people mandate, whether from the ruling party or opposition party and/or even independents, he/she should not be denied from holding the position of mayor.
Under the democratic system, voting rights is the basic human rights of the people. In fact, when Malaya obtained independence from the British colonial government, we have local government election and KL has already done its first election in 1952. When Indonesia-Malaya Confrontation occured in mid of 1960s, the federal government of Malaysia suspended the local government election which to be taken place soon in the whole country by declaring the state of emergency. Thereafter, the government passed the Local Government Act 1976 to further rationalize the expedient decision of suspending the local government election. When Kuala Lumpur become Federal Territory, its citizens had also lost their “second vote” rights which they have enjoy during the Selangor state election, and now they have suffered from these double blows.
In fact, Kuala Lumpur as the capital city of Malaysia should be the bellwether to restore the local government election in our country. Datuk Amin claimed that due to the status of Federal Territory, therefore Kuala Lumpur should governed directly under the federal government. This is a baseless remark for most of the capital cities in other countries, for example the capital of the US, Washington D.C and the capital of Australia, Canberra have their local government election and elected mayor. For this matter, Canberra even has its own state government.
Kuala Lumpur has approximately 2 millions in populations and the annual budget of Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur has already reached and maintained at a total of more than 2 billion Ringgit since 2006 where it is even higher than Selangor state budget. Therefore, Datuk Amin should explain why couldn’t the citizens of KL who are also taxpayers of DBKL have their elected representative to decide how DBKL should spends its income and allocations? And also why should citizens of KL observe laws and regulations of DBKL if the people do not have their elected representatives in the municipal legislative council?
We as the younger generation of Kuala Lumpur feel that it is meaningless to celebrate the Federal Territory Day on 1 February and nothing to be proud of as we have lost our basic rights to exercise the responsibilies of Kuala Lumpur’s citizens.
We believe that if the competition is allowed in Malaysian politics whether the mayoral position is held by the candidates from the ruling parties, the oppositions or even independents, the “discrepancy” which described by Datuk Amin won’t be surfaced because we believe that only through healthy competition and democratic system, the people’s opinions and rights will only be respected and uphold.