LETTER | The Agora Society condemns the recent redelineation exercise undertaken by the Election Commission (EC) and passed by the Parliament that further aggravate the malapportionment and gerrymandering of electoral constituencies in our country.

Similar malpractices in the past have essentially tilted the scales of our election in GE 13, where the popular votes won by the Pakatan Rakyat failed to translate into a majority in the parliamentary seats. It is extremely sad to see that the new redelineated electoral boundaries were already gazetted with an unprecedented speed.

The redelineation exercise is opaque and undemocratic. Despite many valid and fair objections, as well as constructive counter-proposals raised by our civil societies, especially by Bersih, the EC had decided to turn a deaf ear and submit a flawed amendment to the parliament nonetheless. This decision had necessitated multiple corrections subsequently.

As it stands, the largest constituency (150,439 registered voters) in Selangor State is Damansara, and it is four times bigger than its smallest counterpart, Sabak Bernam (37,126). Clearly, the EC has blatantly ignored the principle demanded by our constitution:

"the number of electors within each constituency in a State ought to be approximately equal except that, having regard to the greater difficulty of reaching electors in the country districts and the other disadvantages facing rural constituencies, a measure of weightage for area ought to be given to such constituencies" --- sub-section 2 (c) , 13th Schedule.

The EC has many explanations to do.

We also reject the view as suggested by the chairperson of the EC Mohd Hashim Abdullah, that ethnic groups should be kept together. Gerrymandering our constituencies is an arbitrary and unprincipled act, and is motivated by intentions to favour particular political interests which have no concerns for true democracy. We question the assumption that only the members of particular groups can understand or represent their interests.

Rather than trying to safeguard seats in the Parliament by representing a particular group, we strongly urge our political parties to contest for the representation of more inclusive and diverse communities, unless the particular group is subject to systemic disadvantage in the political process. Affirmative gerrymandering should, be practised with extreme care, limited to groups such as the native communities in our country only.

In the same tone, we condemn the passing of the EC review by the Parliament on March 28, 2018, by 129 MPs from BN, including those hypocritical ones who had the audacity to denounce it publicly before but voted for it later nonetheless. On the other hand, we applaud the 80 MPs who stood against the review which undermines our election and democracy.

Here we propose to set up an RCI to find out ways to reform the electoral system so to realise the most fundamental element and spirit in electoral democracy, “one person one vote” value. Existing electoral systems in the world could be used as a good study reference, including various variants of Proportional Representation (PR) System. Change in the electoral system in other countries is not something very unusual and it could be done to reflect the nature of democracy.

The RCI should also study the feasibility of restoration of 15 percent voter disparity limit among parliamentary seats in the constitution, the restriction had been removed in the 1962 constitutional amendment. The review must also take the vast geographical area of the north Borneo states and scattered population into consideration.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.