However, despite this expection almost all political observers and even the most optimistic Opposition leaders and supporters concede that the BN will most probably be returned to power after the 2008 elections. Why is this the case? The answer is gerrymandering or the delineation of the boundaries of the parliamentary constituencies to give unfair advantage to the BN coalition.
The smallest parliamentary seat for the Federal Territory Putrajaya has only 6,608 voters while the parliamentary seat for Kapar in Selangor has 112,224 voters! What this means is that one vote in the Putrajaya parliamentary constituency is equivalent to 17 votes in the Kapar constituency. This is grossly unfair. The usual justification given for the difference in voters in different constituencies is a "rural weightage". But Putrajaya can hardly be considered a rural area! Of course, the real reason for this discrepancy is obvious. The voters in Putrajaya are mainly civil servants and pro-BN which almost guarantee that this seat will be won by BN.
Such disturbing large discrepancies is also seen in the average voters per parliamentary constituency for the different states. For Sarawak, a state where a large number of parliamentary seats have been won by the BN in the past elections, the average voters in each parliamentary constituency is only about 29,000. However, in Selangor the average number of voters per constituency is about 71,000. To make matter worse, 3 additional parliamentary constituencies have just been created in 2006 for Sarawak which now has 31 seats for the 2008 elections - the largest number of seats for any state. If the population of the states is taken into consideration, and using Sarawak's population as the baseline then Selangor should have 53 parliamentary seats instead of 22 and Trengganu should have 18 parliamentary seats instead of only 8 seats which it currently has.
One must appreciate that such a situation should never be allowed in fair and democratic elections. The equality of voting strength must be recognised as one of the fundamental principles of fair elections. The following are extracted from guidelines from the UN Committee on Human Rights and the European Commission for Democracy Through Law.
The UN Committee on Human Rights, General Comment 25, “The Right to Participate in Public Affairs, Voting Rights and the Right to Equal Access to Public Service”: "The principle of one person, one vote must apply, and within the framework of each State’s electoral system, the vote of one elector should be equal to the vote of another. The drawing of electoral boundaries and the method of allocating votes should not distort the distribution of voters or discriminate against any group and should not exclude or restrict unreasonably the right of citizens to choose their representatives freely." |
European Commission for Democracy Through Law: Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters Guidelines and Explanatory Report Adopted by the Venice Commission, October 2002 "2.2 Equal voting power: seats must be evenly distributed between the constituencies. i. This must at least apply to elections to lower houses of parliament and regional and local elections: ii. It entails a clear and balanced distribution of seats among constituencies on the basis of one of the following allocation criteria: population, number of resident nationals (including minors), number of registered voters, and possibly the number of people actually voting. An appropriate combination of these criteria may be envisaged. iii. The geographical criterion and administrative, or possibly even historical, boundaries may be taken into consideration. iv. The permissible departure from the norm should not be more than ten percent, and should certainly not exceed 15 percent except in special circumstances (protection of a concentrated minority, sparsely populated administrative entity). v. In order to guarantee equal voting power, the distribution of seats must be reviewed at least every ten years, preferably outside election periods." |
In our original 1957 Constitution there is a provision for differences in the voters in different constituencies to provide for "rural weightage". However,the discrepancy is limited to no more than 15% from the average constituency electorate in each state. Unfortunately, due to the stranglehold the BN has in the parliament, constitutional amendments were made in 1962 and 1973 which have removed this crucial 15% restriction. In the 1973 amendments the power of the Election Commission to apportion parliamentary electoral constituencies among the various states was also removed. Both the number of constituencies and their apportionment among states were to be specified in the constitution which means that at any time the ruling coalition with its two-thirds majority in parliament can make amendments to the number of parliamentary constituencies in each state.
Such blatant gerrymandering must not be allowed to continue and major reforms of the electoral system must be carried out after the coming elections. However, the BN coalition cannot be expected to voluntarily undertake such reforms. For this to happen a stronger opposition must be voted into parliament.
