Local council elections: It may take years to set up, says Khalid

KUALA LUMPUR (July 10): If city folk are itching to vote in local council elections, they will have to wait a while longer.

Federal Territories Minister Khalid Samad (pictured) said the process of setting up local elections for DBKL could take years, and it may well be that such elections would not even occur in time for the next general election, reported The Malaysian Insight.

“We don’t have a crystal ball. Maybe it will take three or five years, or maybe it will be the agenda for the next elections. I don’t know,” Khalid said at a media conference at KL City Hall’s (DBKL) office yesterday.

“But we are committed to the democratisation of the public. We want to look at it step by step,” he assured.

The first step was to determine the Kuala Lumpur MPs’ role in DBKL “as to how far they can advise on DBKL matters”.

“The second step is to revise the DBKL advisory board and decide whether the people in it are suitable to be there to help the MPs to fulfil their responsibilities,” The Malaysian Insight reported him as saying.

There are currently 11 KL MPs and 14 people in the DBKL advisory board.

“Lastly, we need to educate the people on the local council elections and its role so that they will not be taken advantage of,” he said.

Last week, Khalid pledged to hold mayoral election in KL, “but only when the time is right”.

"We need to make sure that when we implement it, we can implement it in a manner which will not create any misunderstanding.

"It is not something we don't want to do, but this is something that we will do when the timing and situation is right, because there is a lot of issues which have made it a sensitive issue in our society," he was reported to have said.