Two Kota Raja voters have urged the Election Commission (EC) to rename the Kota Alam Shah state constituency if the commission insists on proceeding with its proposal to redraw its electoral boundaries.
One of them, Selangor PKR Election Committee legal and security manager Sangetha Jayakumar, said this was because the EC’s proposed boundaries did not include the Alam Shah Palace from which the constituency derives its name.
In addition, the proposed new boundaries for Kota Alam Shah did not overlap the existing boundaries at all.
“If they are not going to undo the damage they have done, then I will also argue that there must be a name change for Kota Alam Shah. Kota Alam Shah, if they are going to do a new one, cannot be called Kota Alam Shah […]
“Kota Alam Shah represents the royalty and it represents the royal town with the Alam Shah Palace inside Kota Alam Shah.
“You (the EC) go and do a completely different area to the south that has no palace and you say it’s Kota Alam Shah. It is totally misleading,” she said, while stressing that the EC should in the first place not proceed with the redelineation at all.
Sangetha was speaking to Malaysiakini in Shah Alam just before being called to record her objections at the EC’s local inquiry into its Selangor redelineation excercise.
Kota Raja is a parliamentary constituency comprising the state constituencies of Seri Andalas, Kota Alam Shah and Sri Muda.
Under the EC’s proposal, all of Kota Alam Shah would become part of the Pandamaran state constituency in the neighbouring Klang parliamentary constituency.
Meanwhile, polling districts from parts of the state constituencies of Seri Andalas, Sri Muda and Perlabuhan Klang would be put together to form a new Kota Alam Shah state constituency.
Kota Raja voter Jestin Raj Savarimuthu said that without a name change, the boundary changes would be confusing to voters.
“People will become confused. My friends who are currently voters in Kota Alam Shah have asked me, ‘Hey, am I going to vote in your area (Seri Andalas)?’ I said, ‘No. You vote at your place; it’s just that the name Kota Alam Shah has come into Kota Raja’.
“It is confusing. So I have told them to change the Kota Alam Shah name to another new name because there are no (current Kota Alam Shah) voters there. It’s just that the name is the same,” said the Kota Raja PKR youth chief after making representations at the EC inquiry.
Like Sangetha, Jestin is urging the EC not the proceed with redelineation proposal at all and only adopt the name change if they insist on re-doing the boundaries.
Jestin also questioned the EC's proposal to include the polling districts of Bandar Bukit Tinggi 2 and Bandar Botanic as part of Kota Alam Shah.
He pointed out that these two polling districts would be separated from the other 11 polling districts in Kota Alam Shah’s by a six-lane dual-carriageway.
Sangetha also said that 19 percent of the new Kota Alam Shah’s voters would be Muslims and yet there were no mosques in the constituency.
In addition, she said the there were no schools in the four polling districts in the Sentosa area, which lie just outside Kota Alam Shah’s proposed new boundaries. This will make it difficult for the future Kota Alam Shah assemblyperson to deal with his constituents' problems involving schools, she said.
The proposed boundaries would also mean that the major roadways - Jalan Kota Raja and Jalan Kebun - would be split between different jurisdictions adding to administrative problems, she said.
She also slammed the EC for being ridiculous in not following natural boundaries, such as roads, in redrawing the constituency's boundaries.
She suggested that if the EC were to expand Kota Alam Shah, then it should extend its current boundary towards the southeast until it reaches the Kesas Highway which should be used as a natural boundary.
Meanwhile, Jestin said he is opposing the EC’s redelineation proposal because it would upset the racial harmony in Seri Andalas which he said currently has an almost equal mix of Malays and non-Malays.
After the proposed redelineation, he said the proportion of Malays in the constituency would be increased to about 70 percent.
“That is the utmost important thing that I objected to today, the reason the EC shouldn’t move forward with this.
“Speaking as the younger generation of this country, we should move forward. We should have a healthier environment. With the current redelineation suggestion, you are actually breaking it.
“Why must one main race dominate one particular area?” he told Malaysiakini after making his objection at the local inquiry.
Jestin also pointed out that the proposed new electoral boundaries would make Seri Andalas much larger.
Instead of taking a mere 15-minutes to travel by road from end-to-end, the new Seri Andalas would take about 30 minutes to travel across. This would make it more tedious for the incoming assemblyperson to manage, he noted.- Mkini
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