Does the EC No.2 take us for fools? – Kunjuraman Karuppan

The Election Commission (EC) is now speaking about redelineation of both state and federal constituencies as the last one was done a decade ago.

Now, this is a good move as there has been an increase in voters since then. We now have 13.3 million voters and that is set to increase by the time the 14th general elections take place.

But why is EC deputy chairman Datuk Wan Ahmad Wan Omar taking us for a fool when he was quoted in The Sunday Star today for explaining that the difference in electorate sizes is due to reasonable access to services from the local lawmaker and local councils.

Now, is that the EC’s primary concern? Is it the commission of ensuring everyone has access to their lawmaker and council or to conduct elections in a free and fair manner? And to ensure that every vote is equal in value.

We now have ridiculous statistics of Putrajaya having nearly 16,000 voters while Kapar has some 140,000 voters.

Wan Ahmad gave the ridiculous comparison of Puchong having 107,010 while Silam in Sabah has only 51,662 voters but is remote and is as large as Negri Sembilan and Malacca combined.

“To ensure equal voter weightage, we will have to widen the boundary of Silam even further and this would be unfair to the voters as it would make it even harder for them to get service of their elected representatives and local council who will have even more ground to cover,” Wan Ahmad said.

No sir, what you do with some commonsense is cut up Puchong, so that it is equal if not almost equal to Silam.

Figure out population shifts and make sure every vote is equal. Not give us some poppycock answer.

The only reason why you (are) not thinking aloud along this lines is because more urban seats would probably mean more seats for Pakatan Rakyat (PR) rather (than) Barisan Nasional (BN) if current trends continue.

That also is not your primary concern. Your job is to conduct elections in a free and fair way. Get on with the job and drop the excuses now.

* Kunjuraman Karuppan reads The Malaysian Insider.