The Malaysian government has set up the Electoral Reform Committee (ERC) under the Prime Minister’s Department, a special committee to review election laws and systems in Malaysia in August 2018. The committee comprises members of various backgrounds including former and current EC officials, political party representatives (though primarily are from PPBM), NGO representatives, academicians, etc. The committee, chaired by Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman, has been given two years to study and provide recommendations on electoral reform to the government.
The committee has conducted various stakeholder meetings and submitted its interim report to then Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad in January 2020. The proposals include replacing the current “first-past-the-post” (FPTP) electoral system with a proportional representation system for parliamentary seats, forming boundary commissions every eight years for redelineation exercises in Peninsula, Sabah and Sarawak respectively, and the state to allocate a budget for political party funding. The final report has been submitted to the prime minister in August 2020.