COMMENT | Last July 6, a report by Free Malaysia Today revealed that 10 out of the 17 newly added Sarawak legislative assembly seats would go to Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS)’s anchor party, PBB, three to its Chinese and Bidayuh-based component, SUPP, and two each to the Dayak-based PRS and PDP.

A deck of 98 slides suspected to be prepared by GPS in early 2025 has been circulated lately. It suggests a similar plan except that PRS would get three and PDP only one.

You may wonder why seat allocations are happening even before constituency delimitation starts. Don’t allied parties have to wait until the final maps are drawn to decide which parties contest which seats?

This is exactly why this may be deeply problematic and possibly illegal.

If eventually the proposed map by the Election Commission (EC) looks similar to what has been revealed in the FMT report or the latest leak, then the EC would appear to be drawing the Sarawak electoral map in accordance with GPS’ instructions, to help them not just to win elections, but also to allocate seats.

If that is the case...