Politics

Lembah Ria Municipal Council opens a review of how its appointed seats are filled

A working paper proposes new qualifying criteria for appointed councillors. The current criteria have not been revised since the council's last restructuring.

By Haziq Noor · 17 July 2026 · 3 min read

Case names, entities and officials in this report are composite and illustrative. References to public bodies describe their statutory role only.

The criteria under review

Lembah Ria Municipal Council, in Negeri Sembilan, has opened a review of the qualifying criteria used to fill its eight appointed council seats, alongside its twelve elected ones. A working paper, circulated to councillors on 14 July, proposes replacing the current criteria, set out in a 2018 council directive, with a points-based framework.

The 2018 directive requires an appointed councillor to hold either five years of residency in the municipal area or a professional qualification relevant to one of the council's standing committees, verified by a document check at the point of appointment. It does not require any prior public or community-sector experience.

The working paper's proposed points framework would score candidates on residency, sector experience, and a reference from a recognised community organisation, with a minimum score required for appointment rather than the single-condition test the current directive applies.

The review follows a routine audit of council appointments carried out by the secretariat's own compliance unit in April, which found that three of the eight current appointees' files lacked the qualification document the 2018 directive requires, though all three appointments themselves were not challenged as a result.

What is proposed

Under the proposed framework, a candidate would need at least six of ten possible points to qualify, drawn from three categories: up to four points for residency length, up to three for sector experience matched to a standing committee, and up to three for a reference letter.

The working paper does not specify who would score each candidate or resolve a tie, leaving that detail to a follow-up procedural note the paper says is still being drafted.

The paper also proposes a standard two-year term for appointed seats, replacing the current practice, under which the 2018 directive sets no fixed term and reappointment has in practice ranged from one to four years across the eight current appointees.

A comparison table attached to the working paper sets out how each of the eight current appointees would have scored under the proposed framework had it applied at their appointment date; five would have met the proposed six-point threshold and three would not have, based on the residency and experience fields recorded in their existing files.

Who is consulted

The council's standing orders require a working paper of this kind to go to a thirty-day public comment period before a full council vote. The comment period for this paper opened on 14 July and is scheduled to close on 13 August.

Three community organisations named in the council's own register of recognised bodies have submitted early written responses, according to the council secretariat's log; two support the points framework in principle, and one has asked for a longer minimum residency requirement than the four-point maximum proposed.

The secretariat's log does not record how many of the council's full roster of recognised community organisations, twenty-two in total, were notified directly of the comment period, as opposed to learning of it through the paper's publication on the council's public notice board.

The timetable

If the comment period closes without a proposed amendment, the working paper goes to a full council vote at the September sitting. If an amendment is proposed during the comment period, the secretariat's procedure allows for a second, shorter comment window before the vote is scheduled.

The council has not stated when, if adopted, the new criteria would first apply to an appointment; the eight current appointed seats are not due for renewal as a group, with individual terms ending on staggered dates between January and November 2027.

A councillor who chairs the standing committee on local governance has asked, in a written question logged ahead of the comment period's close, whether the points framework would be applied retroactively to reassess any of the three files flagged in the April compliance audit. The secretariat's response was not yet on record at the time of publication.

A points system sounds more objective than a single condition, but only if the scoring is published alongside it. Right now we have the categories and not the method.