‘With EC proposal, BN can get two-thirds with just 40pct votes’

The Election Commission’s proposed redelineation could allow BN to gain a two-thirds majority with just 40 percent of the votes, warned an analyst.

Political scientist Wong Chin Huat was reported telling The Australian in a report today that the new redelineation would worsen the malapportionment of constituencies.

“The best thing for the government is if this election becomes a non-event. If the turnout drops to 70 percent, the government could win a two-thirds majority with just 40 percent of the vote,” Wong was reported as saying in the Australian daily’s article today on electoral fraud in the coming general election.

Wong pointed out the average size of a Pakatan Harapan seat is 77,655 voters, as compared to an average BN seat of 46,510.

This, he said, allowed BN to secure 60 percent of the seats in 2013 with just 47 percent of the votes, while then Pakatan Rakyat won the popular vote (51 percent) but only managed to get 40 percent of the seats.

The redelineation has been highly criticised for not only malapportionment and gerrymandering, but for creating racial-centric constituencies, which Harapan claims is a move to reduce the impact of non-Malay support for the ruling party.

“What they’re doing is Balkanising the electoral landscape to put all Chinese in one area and all Malay in another area, so you create a divided electoral system where legislators need only address the one ethnic group,” PKR vice-president Tian Chua was reported as saying.

“What will happen in the long run is we will have a parliament that’s very divisive. On principle, we oppose that, not because we will lose but because it’s bad for the country.”

The Australian’s report on the controversial redelineation called the ruling party’s move to bulldoze the EC’s proposal through Parliament and manoeuvring to frustrate court action by embargoing the report, a move to secure BN’s win in the coming election.

Meanwhile, Wong said the only hope was for a high voter turnout, for the opposition is to stir up the same kind of enthusiasm for change that led to an unprecedented 85 percent voter turnout in the 2013 election. -Mkini