The Macao authorities reiterated on Monday the need to criminalize each and every one of the polls, so as not to “influence voting intentions”, in a revision of the electoral law proposed by the Government currently in public consultation.
During a public consultation session, the director of Services for Justice Affairs (DSAJ), Leong Weng In, argued that the publication of poll results could “influence voting intentions and affect the elections.”
The current electoral law already prohibits the dissemination of results of public opinion polls to candidates for head of government and deputies, from the beginning of the electoral campaign until the day after the vote.
But, Leong recalled, the law only allows sanctioning the media and advertising and survey companies, not covering the disclosure of surveys by individuals “and other organizations.”
The director of the DSAJ explained that the electoral review seeks to penalize “any person and entity that disseminates or promotes the dissemination” of the results of public opinion polls, specifically through the Internet.
The Secretary of Administration and Justice, André Cheong Weng Chon, warned that “citizens have to be careful”, because “the Internet is not a place outside the law”, and recalled that the law allows surveys, but not the dissemination of results.
The member of the Traffic Advisory Board, Wong Man Pan, argued that the maximum fine provided for in the current law, 100,000 patacas (11,400 euros), “is not enough and should be higher, because it has no deterrent effect.”
The 12 people who requested the floor at Monday’s session were read written statements expressing “full agreement” with the revision, all of whom used the phrase “Macau ruled by patriots.”
In 2014, three Macao pro-democracy associations organized a public opinion poll on the introduction of universal suffrage to elect the head of the government, who is appointed by a 400-member electoral college.
The so-called “civil referendum” was considered illegal by the authorities and the Macao Judicial Police detained two of the organizers and three volunteers for a few hours, none of whom ended up being charged with any crime.
In June 2016, one of the pro-democracy associations, Novo Macau, launched a new investigation into a possible reform of the Macau Foundation, an entity that grants public subsidies, after a large donation to a university in mainland China.
Two months later, Novo Macau launched an alternate vote for the names of baby pandas born in Macau, ending with the names “Tam Tam” and “Wu Wu” being chosen. “Tam Wu” means corruption in Cantonese.
Source: TSF
