Most people would have missed the point about how Sarawak elections would turn out, especially those who expected a tsunami, when in fact, past gerrymandering would ensure victory for PBB only, and for West Malaysia, for Umno only.
DAP might be victorious at the expense of SUPP/MCA but PKR is more feared for its potential in upsetting the status quo if it managed to upset PBB/Umno's support base.
Spotted this in Lim Kit Siang's blog:
Comment on the 2011 Sarawak election: We need fair election rules
By Lim Yin Kuin
Sir,
I am a Malaysian student in a U.S. university and would like to comment on something I found outrageous about the Sarawak state election.
How is it that Chinese people make up the majority in Sarawak (something the mainstream media is not keen on mentioning often), yet Chinese candidates were left to fight for around 20 or so seats out of 71 in the state assembly? While I’m not a fan of political parties chasing votes from specific communities (PBB vs. PKR for Malays/Melanaus, SUPP vs. DAP for Chinese), how is it that the battle between DAP and SUPP to win the Chinese vote became a sideshow while PBB and Taib retained their political dominance while representing a minority of Sarawak’s population?
Comment on the 2011 Sarawak election: We need fair election rules
By Lim Yin Kuin
Sir,
I am a Malaysian student in a U.S. university and would like to comment on something I found outrageous about the Sarawak state election.
How is it that Chinese people make up the majority in Sarawak (something the mainstream media is not keen on mentioning often), yet Chinese candidates were left to fight for around 20 or so seats out of 71 in the state assembly? While I’m not a fan of political parties chasing votes from specific communities (PBB vs. PKR for Malays/Melanaus, SUPP vs. DAP for Chinese), how is it that the battle between DAP and SUPP to win the Chinese vote became a sideshow while PBB and Taib retained their political dominance while representing a minority of Sarawak’s population?
Of course, those questions are rhetorical. We all know the reasons behind them and no one dares ask why. For a Chinese person to question his or her lack of political representation is the worst form of political incorrectness in Malaysia.
More where that came from:
More where that came from:
The reality of unfair delineation of electoral boundaries can best be illustrated with two extreme examples: the largest and the smallest parliamentary constituencies in Malaysia: in 2004, 104,185 and 5079 voters respectively showing an extreme ratio of over 20! Fortunately, Putrajaya is an exception. But still, in 1995, the figures were 85,954 and 21,719 giving a ratio of almost 4!
To be more specific, according to SUARAM:
"In the 1995 elections, while every parliamentary constituency in Selangor was allocated three state seats, the Opposition held constituencies of Klang and Petaling Jaya were allocated only two state constituencies. Such gerrymandering means that the opposition parties whilst obtaining the support of a substantial portion of the electorate will only still obtain a small number of seats in Parliament."
SUARAM and many other observers have pointed out as well that unfair constituency delineation or gerrymandering has also made a mockery of the one-person one-vote democracy that is fundamental in any electoral system that claims to be democratic:
"For the one-person one-vote system to function, the disparity in numbers of voters between constituencies (whether at state or parliamentary level) must be controlled. The original 1957 Federal Constitution provided such guarantees: it said that the disparity shall not exceed fifteen percent (15 %). However these fundamental guarantees have been removed by constitutional amendments. Today, opposition-supporting parliamentary constituencies in Kuala Lumpur have up to 100,000 voters whilst the smallest parliamentary constituencies may have about 20,000 to 25,000 voters. The difference intended originally to be limited to 15 % has now become 400 to 500 %! In 1990 for example, while Penang (which has traditionally been an opposition bastion) had an average of about 50,838 voters per constituency, Perlis had an average of 33,032 voters per constituency. Further gerrymandering occurs in the provision of state seats within parliamentary constituencies."
To be more specific, according to SUARAM:
"In the 1995 elections, while every parliamentary constituency in Selangor was allocated three state seats, the Opposition held constituencies of Klang and Petaling Jaya were allocated only two state constituencies. Such gerrymandering means that the opposition parties whilst obtaining the support of a substantial portion of the electorate will only still obtain a small number of seats in Parliament."
SUARAM and many other observers have pointed out as well that unfair constituency delineation or gerrymandering has also made a mockery of the one-person one-vote democracy that is fundamental in any electoral system that claims to be democratic:
"For the one-person one-vote system to function, the disparity in numbers of voters between constituencies (whether at state or parliamentary level) must be controlled. The original 1957 Federal Constitution provided such guarantees: it said that the disparity shall not exceed fifteen percent (15 %). However these fundamental guarantees have been removed by constitutional amendments. Today, opposition-supporting parliamentary constituencies in Kuala Lumpur have up to 100,000 voters whilst the smallest parliamentary constituencies may have about 20,000 to 25,000 voters. The difference intended originally to be limited to 15 % has now become 400 to 500 %! In 1990 for example, while Penang (which has traditionally been an opposition bastion) had an average of about 50,838 voters per constituency, Perlis had an average of 33,032 voters per constituency. Further gerrymandering occurs in the provision of state seats within parliamentary constituencies."
Source: Aliran
Despite its headline, Raja Petra's latest article seems relevant to this post:
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