The current delimitation or delineation exercise conducted by the Election Commission (EC) is facing the strongest protest in the history of Malaysian elections. This is because the people are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with our election system.
Academician Lim Hong Hai and delimitation analyst Ng Chak Ngoon stated that while the Federal Constitution was amended several times, the outcome did not improve the election system. Instead, it has become worse. Merdeka Center’s surveys have shown that a majority of the people no longer trust the EC.
Tindak Malaysia, a non-governmental organisation dedicated to electoral reform and educating voters, says the EC can manipulate the constituency boundaries in two ways — by malapportionment and gerrymandering, which often produce election results that are not reflective of the people’s will.
The percentage of seats won by Alliance/Barisan Nasional in the general elections held between 1964 and 2013 exceeded greatly the percentage of votes they received. In the 13th general election (GE13), BN won only 47% of the votes, but secured 60% of the seats in Dewan Rakyat. In fact, the seats with a small number of voters won by BN were enough to secure a simple majority of 112 seats.
According to academician Bridget Welsh, since 2007, there have been intense discussions on how to make the election rules and administration fairer.
Under an electoral reform, four major areas are scrutinised, all of which point to ways the system favours the incumbent BN. This negatively affects electoral integrity.
Foremost is the conduct — the perceived bias and lack of professionalism — of the main institution, the EC. Many of its officers lack professionalism in administering polls. And some former commissioners have publicly pledged loyalty to BN component party Umno, thus causing concern about their neutrality.
Secondly, are the exclusion and suspect practices in the management of voter registration. The EC has been seen as arbitrary in assessing when to include voters in the final electoral roll. The exclusion is particularly acute in the rural areas of Sabah and Sarawak, where voters are effectively registered through civil servants as they often lack access to register otherwise.
The other issue is non-citizens being allowed to vote, especially in Sabah, as concluded by the Royal Commission of Inquiry. This brings us to the integrity of the electoral roll itself. Just before GE13, “phantom voters” — where many of them either lacked addresses or were listed all in one residence — were a big issue. Repeated calls to revamp the electoral roll have been ignored. This was further compounded by unexplained placements and transfers of voters, for example, last July, as pointed out by Bersih, more than 118,000 voters were moved to other constituencies via a “locality correction” by the EC.
Thirdly, is the “unequal playing field” of the election campaign. The advantages of money, including money politics (vote buying), unregulated campaign financing and the abuse of state resources in campaigns have become the norm that favours the incumbent government. Besides that, Malaysia’s mainstream media are owned by companies linked to the government. Hence, opposition parties face skewed coverage and a lack of access to the media.
Finally, is the question on the electoral framework as a whole — the electoral system itself and the organisation of constituencies — and the legal framework. Even though the BN lost the popular vote in GE13, it “took all” under the first-past-the-post electoral system. This has been criticised and today, there are increasing calls for the more inclusive “proportional representation” system.
Welsh concluded that while Malaysia is classified as a competitive electoral authoritarian or semi-democratic/semi-authoritarian state — multiparty, competitive elections are held regularly, but they fall short of free and fair, and civil liberties face significant curbs.
Why must we object to the current delimitation/delineation exercise? Because it is wrong, bad, unconstitutional and unfair. Just like the previous ones, and in fact, it is getting worse.
Who can object? Three entities — state governments, local authorities and a group of 100 affected voters.
On Sept 21, Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Mohamed Azmin Ali wrote to the EC requesting a meeting to seek clarification on the justification and methodologies of the delimitation exercise. The local authorities in Selangor are also expected to take action.
Two days earlier, Pakatan Harapan parties (Keadilan, DAP and Amanah) had announced that they would mobilise their members to form groups of 100 voters to file their objections. The Bar Council is also preparing the guidelines on how to file objections. Tindak Malaysia is training the groups of 100 voters while Bersih is organising the Bersih 5 Rally on Nov 19. And yes, even BN component parties — MCA and Gerakan — have stated their objections.
Will the objections be successful?
In the past, they impacted very little. But, this time, there are greater public awareness and more protests, and with the success of the previous Bersih rallies, the almost successful legal challenge to Sarawak’s delimitation exercise and, more importantly, the increasing number and quality of stakeholders involved in a coordinated manner, you never know what will happen.
Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah is chief secretary of Pakatan Harapan and former deputy minister of higher education. He is active on Twitter: @saifuddinabd.
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