Forum & Objection Townhall: Constituency Re-Delineation - How To Steal An Election?

DAP will be organising a Forum cum Objection Townhall on the Election Commission’s proposal to re-delineate the electoral constituencies in Malaysia.

The Objection Townhall will give Malaysians, especially those in the Klang Valley, the opportunity to register our protest by signing the objection forms we have prepared.

We call upon Malaysians to make your voice count as all objections to the EC Re-Delineation Proposal must be submitted by Oct 14.  Hence this event will in all likelihood be the last opportunity for you to state your stand and be part of the process to fight and reject the gerrymandering exercise.

The delineation of constituencies in Malaysia is already skewed.  That’s why in the 13th General Election, BN won only 48% of the votes but secured 60% of the Parliamentary seats.

So now, BN’s ingenious plan is to skew the electoral boundaries even further by shifting pro-BN voters from opposition strongholds into opposition and BN marginal seats.  The proposal by the Election Commission is the worst gerrymandering exercise ever seen in Malaysia’s history.

Malaysians must rise to object against the audacious attempt to now cheat us of our democratic rights to a free and fair election.  We must not let a corrupt government hang on to power via the abuse of power.

The Forum entitled “Constituency Re-Delineation – How to Steal an Election?” will feature distinguished speakers discussing various aspects of the re-delineation exercise.  They include:

• Tony Pua, MP for Petaling Jaya Utara
• Rafizi Ramli, MP for Pandan
• Dr. Mohd. Hatta Ramli, MP for Kuala Krai
• Maria Chin, Chairperson for Bersih 2.0
• Dr Ong Kian Ming, MP for Serdang
• Wong Chin Huat, Fellow, Penang Institute
• Michelle Ng, a lawyer who also leads dedicated legal team to assist DAP with re-delineation issues with the Election Commisson

The event will be held at The Club, 1 Club Drive, Bandar Utama on Wednesday, 12 October 2016 at 8pm.

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The Election Commission is not only trying to steal GE14 by gerrymandering constituencies to UMNO’s advantage, it is systematically impeding the registration of new voters

We have statistically and empirically proven that there is only one “winner” in the newly proposed re-delineation of parliamentary and state constituencies by the Election Commission (EC).  Wherever possible, marginal UMNO seats are strengthened while marginal opposition-held constituencies are weakened by shifting in core BN supporters from neighbouring constituencies.

However, the EC who is also the only institution which can register new voters in the country is also proactively stalling and impeding the registration of new voters.

As at April this year, there are 17.6 million qualified voters in Malaysia.  However, only 13.4 million of them are register while 4.2 million remained disenfranchised.  This means that nearly 1 in 4 voters are not able to exercise their rights enshrined in the constitution if an election is called today.

Instead of making concrete and concerted efforts in collaboration with all parties to increase the number of voters registered, the EC is doing its utmost to slow down new registrations.

Firstly, the EC has stopped the appointment of Assistant Registration Officers (AROs) from political parties to assist with the registration exercise since 2013.  In 2011 and 2012 before the last general election, there were 5720 and 4777 appointed AROs.  Today, the numbers are negligible and they have not been replaced with any other institutions to perform the same task.

The impact and difference is telling.  In 2011 alone, 1,023,170 Malaysians were registered as new voters.  However, the 3 years from 2013 to 2015 only saw a total of 617,254 voters registered, or an average of 205,751 voters per annum.  At this rate, the number of unregistered voters will only increase exponentially as there are more than 500,000 new qualified voters every year (and increasing!).

As political parties are unable to have AROs to register voters, we have been told by the EC that they will be able to assign their officers to assist us with our voter registration campaigns.

However, such assistance comes with many conditions attached – such as no scheduled campaigns in the evenings and no “pasar malams” or open-air markets.

Despite the restrictions, the DAP cooperated and focused our joint campaigns with EC in the air-conditioned comforts of shopping malls.  However, to our disappointment and despite repeated formal and informal reminders to bring sufficient forms, the EC officials – under instruction, bring only limited number of forms.  As a result, our voter registration booths at the malls had to close early and hundreds of qualified voters were left disappointed.

Now, the EC has officially informed us to cancel all our planned voter registration campaigns after 3rd October purportedly because they now have to focus on handling the objections to the proposed re-delineation exercise.

Even when we then ask the unregistered voters to head to the nearest post office, we have often heard the inexcusable complaints of the lack of forms.

At best, the actions of the EC show that they are incompetent and abdicating their responsibilities to ensure qualified voters are able to exercise their constitutionally enshrined right to vote.  At worst, they are clearly sabotaging the electoral process by denying these voters their basic rights.

This is because, younger and newer voters as a whole have no loyalty to UMNO and BN.  A substantial majority of them have proven in past elections to be inclined to vote for the opposition.

We call upon the Election Commission to be serious about the registration of new voters since they have persistently refused the proposal for the automatic registration of voters.  If it is unable to carry out its responsibilities on its own, then it should start using its powers to appoint thousands of AROs across the country.

The EC would do well to remember its own “mission” stated on their malware-infested website, that is “mendukung sistem demokrasi berparlimen dan menjamin hak rakyat untuk memilih wakil mereka” and “mengurus, mengawal selia dan mengendalikan pilihanraya secara bebas dan adil”. Hence it should stop acting like UMNO’s henchmen to rig the electoral outcome.

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DAP Selangor will hold an emergency state committee meeting today to discuss impact of re-delineation plans on the state's Pakatan Harapan for GE14

As analysts within DAP, political parties and think tanks across the country digest the proposed re-delineation plan by the Election Commission, it has become clear that the exercise is the most brazen attempt to gerrymander a victory for UMNO in the next general elections.

Perhaps it should not come as such a surprise in the light of the fact that the Najib administration is facing the worst political crisis in the history of the country.  All surveys and studies showed Dato’ Seri Najib Razak’s ratings to be the lowest ever recorded by any Prime Minister as a consequence of the 1MDB financial scandal and the impact of the GST on ordinary Malaysian’s cost of living.

If in 2013, Barisan Nasional received less than 48% of the popular vote then the only logical conclusion will be that the ruling coalition will receive lesser votes in the 14th General Election.

Hence the trump card for BN was to redraw the election constituency boundaries to the extent that BN will be assured of a thumping victory even if their popular votes continue to decline.

The simplest way of doing so would be to bundle opposition inclined voters into super-constituencies with more than 100,000 voters while breaking up hard-core pro-ruling party supporters into smaller multiple constituencies.

The clearest example was in the seat of Petaling Jaya Utara which was enlarged from 85,401 voters to 150,439 voters.  The newly enlarged constituency, renamed “Damansara” is projected to achieve a super-majority of 73,533 based on the 2013 voting records, as opposed to the actual majority of 44,672.

As a result, the neighbouring constituency of Subang (renamed “Sungai Buloh”) becomes a very marginal seat with only a projected 3,037 majority as opposed on 26,719 achieved in 2013.

What we have since discovered to be even more audacious however, is the plans by the Election Commission to return the Selangor state government to BN via aggressive gerrymandering.

Based on 2013 voting patterns alone, at least seven state assembly seats will be won back outright by BN in the next election.  They are Sabak, Hulu Kelang, Sementa, Selat Kelang, Pelabuhan Kelang, Sijangkang and Morib.

At the same time, at least another ten seats had their majorities vastly reduced to place them within reach of the BN candidates.

With brazen gerrymandering coupled with an aggressive campaign based on race and religious rhetoric, there is now a very real possibility that Selangor will indeed fall to BN.

The DAP Selangor state committee will meet later today discuss the findings of our studies and formulate our position as well as the next steps which we need to take to ensure that the people of Selangor will not be robbed of their mandate in the next general elections.

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Election Commission conducts single-biggest gerrymandering exercise in the history of Malaysia to steal victory in the next General Election for Barisan Nasional

The Election Commission (EC) has officially published its proposed redelineation of electoral boundaries today.  As highlighted previously, there will be no increase in parliamentary seats for the whole country, and no increase in state seats for Peninsula Malaysia.

A simple cursory review of the proposals will confirm the fears of all Malaysians that the EC has made it its primary objective to ensure Barisan Nasional (BN) victory for the Federal Government.

In the proposal, my constituency, “Petaling Jaya Utara (PJU)”, to be renamed as “Damansara”, will become the single largest constituency in Malaysia with 150,439 voters, an increase of 76.2% from the 85,401 registered voters as at the 2013 General Election.

Damansara will displace Kapar as the single largest constituency, with the latter’s number of voters reduced from 144,159 to 100,456, a reduction of 30.3%.

The discretionary treatment in the two seats epitomises the completely arbitrary and brazen gerrymandering exercise the EC is carrying out to the advantage of BN.

How can the EC justify or rationalise the increase of 76.2% of voters in my constituency, making it the largest in the country while at the same time reducing the existing largest constituency by 30%?

EC has increased the size of Damansara mainly by appending 54,902 voters from Bukit Lanjan state assembly seat, previously part of Subang (now renamed “Sungai Buloh”) parliament.  As a result, the number of voters in Subang/Sungai Buloh is also reduced from 128,543 (2013) to 73,448.

There is only one reason one can deduce from the EC actions. It was to add to the majority in the seats BN is deemed unlikely to win, while reducing the majorities for seats where BN sees the opportunity to re-capture.

PJU had the 2nd highest majority of 44,672 in the 2013 general election and is in all probability deemed unwinnable by BN.

Bukit Lanjan on the other hand contributed a 17,200 vote majority to the Subang parliament overall winning majority of 26,719 by Sivarasa Rasiah of PKR in 2013.

With the proposed redelineation, Subang/Sungai Buloh will be left with a much reduced estimated majority of only 9,519 votes.

By shifting Bukit Lanjan to Damansara, the EC has made Subang a much more winnable seat for BN, despite increasing the potential majority for Damansara to a whopping 61,872 (based on 2013 results)!

The similar situation applies to Kapar, when its state seat with the largest majority, Sg Pinang (renamed “Bandar Baru Klang”) is shifted to the Klang parliamentary seat which faced an increase of voters from 97,073 (2013) to 141,025.

In doing so, Kapar, which is currently held by Manivanan Gowin of PKR becomes much more vulnerable.  It’s 2013 winning majority of 23,790 is approximately halved as a result of the proposed redelineation.

The absurdity of creating a monster Damansara seat with more than 150,000 voters is even more outrageous when contrasted with other seats in Peninsula Malaysia with only a fraction of the voters.

Putrajaya remained the smallest constituency in the country with only 17,627 voters (11.7% of Damansara).  Perak remains the state with the highest number of low voter seats with Lenggong at 28,078 (18.7% of Damansara), Padang Rengas at 28,727 (19.1%), Kuala Kangsar at 33,113 (22.0%), Parit at 33,638 (22.4%) and Gerik at 33,832 (22.5%).

Even within Selangor, which has 2.08 million voters and 22 parliamentary seats, the disparity is unjustifiably huge, with the smallest constituency of Sabak Bernam having only 37,126 voters (24.7% of Damansara).  The discrepancy in the number of voters for constituencies within Selangor itself is repugnant, when the average number of voters per seat should be approximately 94,500.

Effectively, a vote in the redelineated Damanasara is not worth even a quarter of a vote in the above gerrymandered seats designed to give the advantage to BN.

We call upon all voters in Damansara, as well as all other affected voters in Malaysia to protest vehemently at the proposed election rigging exercise by the EC which deny them of their equal rights enshrined in the Federal Constitution.

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