The ruling BN coalition will win big in the next general elections, Selangor government think-tank Institute Darul Ehsan (IDE) deputy chairperson Mohammad Redzuan Othman said.
Redzuan said this was based on the outcomes of past elections, when redelineation exercises were conducted.
"History shows that each time there is a redelineation, BN will record a big win. BN's victory in 2004, most people think it was solely because of the Pak Lah (feel good) factor.
"But actually it is not. Pak Lah was only one factor," Redzuan said in an interview with Sinar Harian today.
In the 2004 polls, then-premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, better known as Pak Lah, led BN to its biggest win since 1978, capturing 198 out of 219 parliamentary seats, and 63.9 percent of the popular vote.
PAS only held on to seven of the 27 seats it had previously won, while PKR lost four out of five seats with party president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail barely holding on to Permatang Pauh with a 509 vote majority.
Only DAP improved, gaining two extra seats to bag 12 parliamentary constituencies in total.
"Most of these seats which was by the opposition in 1999 was recaptured by BN not because of the Pak Lah factor, but instead it was due to redelineation," Redzuan said,
The current redelineation exercise has been widely panned as a BN gambit to hold on to power, at the cost of causing greater racial polarisation in Malaysia, as studies show the new boundaries create constituencies that are dominated by one ethnic group or another.
Redzuan, who is also Universiti Selangor (Unisel) vice chancellor, said redelineation along racial lines had been carried out in 2004 as well.
Back then, he said, many Malays were upset with the government following Anwar Ibrahim's black eye incident, while the Chinese were solidly behind BN.
Thus he said, the redelineation sought to create more mixed seats to balance out Malay sentiments.
However this worked the other way in 2008, where mixed-seats swung their support to the opposition, he noted.
"So this new redelineation, will be carried out according to groups. Malays are in one group, the Chinese in another."
Redzuan said the redelineation exercise can be considered a "cheating and legalising a lie".
"They will win in an ungentlemanly manner," he added. -Mkini
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