Beyond Black 505

Pakatan should concentrate on ensuring a fair delineation of electoral constituencies.

The Black 505 rally scheduled for June 22 in Kuala Lumpur is expected to draw a crowd that is even larger than the record-breaking one that Bersih gathered for its third rally last year.

However, cynics are asking whether the Black 505 series will achieve anything more significant than giving vent to the anger felt by Pakatan Rakyat and its supporters over perceived unfairness in the conduct of last May 5’s general election.

Will there be a revision of the results of the 13th general election? Will the government revamp the Election Commission (EC)?

Will the EC chairman and his deputy lose their jobs?

Perhaps the most important question is whether another big rally will ensure a free and fair 14th general election.

Most observers would answer “No” to all of the questions above.

Even if the Election Commission (EC) were to promise to implement new procedures to ensure transparency in coming elections, no reasonable observer is going to take it seriously.

The indelible ink fiasco in the recent election illustrates how the BN-friendly commission can foul up things at the last minute.

Perhaps the best thing for Pakatan to do now is to ensure that it has a significant say in the re-delineation of electoral constituencies so as to prevent the kind of gerrymandering that BN used to do when it controlled more than two thirds of Parliament.

A fair and even delineation will help Pakatan win more seats in the 14th general election.

Except perhaps in Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu, population increases in most rural areas since the 2003 delineation have not been significant enough to merit the creation of new seats.

Delineation exercise
In many urban and semi-urban areas, however, the numbers of registered voters have far exceeded parameters determined by the EC.

For example, the semi-urban parliament constituency of Kapar in Selangor had 112,224 voters for the 12th general election. This number increased to 144,369 for the recent election. In five years’ time, assuming a similar increase, there will be 176,514 voters.

Pakatan should demand that Kapar be split into three parliament seats for the next election.

In fact, in Selangor alone, nine other parliament constituencies now need to be split.

They are Serdang, Subang, Hulu Langat, Gombak, Puchong, Selayang, Kota Raja, Kelana Jaya and Shah Alam. Each has more than 100,000 voters.

Klang is another candidate for re-delineation. In 2008, it had 77,816. The number increased to 97,252 in five years. By the time the 14th general election comes around, it should easily pass the 100,000 mark.

If each of these 11 seats in Selangor were split into two, Pakatan could easily add 11 more to its tally in Parliament.

BN will undoubtedly demand the creation of new seats in the rural areas where it is confident of voter support, but it would not gain much advantage over Pakatan unless EC could come up with a justification to use different parameters for rural areas.

Outside Selangor, there are many more urban and semi-urban seats that need to be split.

These include Gelang Patah (106,864 voters), Seremban (102,507), Johor Bahru (96,515) and Kota Melaka (92,511).

Free and fair polls

Re-delineation in rural and semi-rural constituencies in Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu will also benefit Pakatan.

In the 2003 nationwide delineation, the EC left out Kelantan and Terengganu.

Opposition leaders alleged at the time that this was in order to deny extra seats for PAS.

This time around, the commission would be hard pressed to find excuses to leave out these Pakatan-inclined rural states and the opposition must make sure that it does not.

Re-delineation without gerrymandering is one of the most effective ways of ensuring free and fair elections.

Pakatan and Bersih should channel the people power behind them to bring this about.