File objections against EC's reviewed proposal, MP tells Selangor voters

A DAP lawmaker has urged Selangor voters to file as many objections as possible against the Election Commission's (EC) reviewed proposal for its ongoing re-delineation exercise.

Serdang MP Ong Kian Ming said that the move would be one way to "force" the EC to have a longer period for the second public hearing session and delay the entire process to after the end of the next parliament sitting beginning March, where its final report could be tabled for approval of lawmakers.

"Only with a concerted and determined effort do we stand any chance of delaying the unfair and unconstitutional delimitation exercise from being passed in the March-April 2018 parliament sitting," said Ong in a statement today.

Another option, Ong said, would be for the Selangor state government to continue pursuing its legal challenges in court by filing for an injunction against the second proposal, as well as to challenge the "gross malapportionment" in Selangor in the Court of Appeal.

Their main aim, Ong explained, was to prevent the EC from shifting the blame to Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, who under Section 9 of the 13th schedule of the Federal Constitution, appears to be empowered to modify the final proposal for the delimitation exercise after it has been submitted to him.

"Given that the BN is desperate to win back Selangor, this is the most likely outcome.

"The EC can absolve itself from acting in bad faith by putting the responsibility solely on the prime minister and the prime minister can refer to the Federal Constitution to say that he is acting within his powers, even though by doing so, it would make a mockery of the entire delimitation exercise and the need for public hearings," Ong said.

He earlier noted that the EC "did nothing" to make the number of voters in the parliament and state seats approximately equal, citing as an example, the Seri Serdang (74,563 voters) and Kinrara (34,910 voters) state seats under the Puchong parliament seat).

"Even though the EC was (still) guilty of ethnic gerrymandering in a number of state seats in the second proposal, it was still somewhat surprising that it had reverted to the electoral boundaries used in the 13th general election for most of the seats in Selangor.

"This raises the question of what motivated the EC to do so," he said.

Ong said he was "sceptical" that the EC had taken into consideration objections raised during the first round of local inquiry held from Dec 27 last year to Jan 9 in making the decision as it had not addressed the issue of voters discrepancies.

"One possibility is that the EC is concerned that a court case filed by either the Selangor state government or by a voter in Selangor will delay the delimitation exercise in Selangor (and hence the entire delimitation exercise for Peninsular Malaysia) if it maintains the boundaries proposed in the first proposal.

"The EC wanted to pre-empt this by reverting back, mostly, to the GE13 boundaries for most of the seats, especially for the more egregious cases involving the PJ Utara and PJ Selatan parliament seats," he argued.

EC chairperson Mohd Hashim Abdullah previously said 116 eligible representations on objections were invited to attend the first inquiry session held from Dec 27 last year to Jan 9.

Following this, the EC would display the proposed recommendations for electoral boundaries for parliamentary and state constituencies in Selangor for a month, until Feb 14, at places stated in a notice which would be published in local newspapers.- Mkini