MORE than two and a half years ago, we wrote to the Selangor and Penang state governments proposing to amend the State Constitution to pre-empt the EC abusing their delimitation powers during a delimitation exercise. Subsequently, we submitted the draft proposal to amend the State Constitution. We suggested to them to seek legal advice on the feasibility of passing the legislation.

What are the key points?

1. To safeguard the democratic rights of the Selangor people, we propose amendments to the Selangor State Constitution for the following:
2. Increase the number of state constituencies from 56 to 66 to comply with Article 62(2) of the State Constitution.
3. Set a limit to the variance in the number of electors from the mean (Electoral Quota or EQ) of 15%, in line with the Federal Constitution.
4. Set every parliamentary constituency to have three state constituencies exactly.
5. No voting district is permitted to cross a local or district council (PBT) boundary.
6. Every state constituency shall, as far as practical, fit into a PBT boundary and in no case, straddle more than two PBT.

Advantages:

1. This will reduce the workload of the assemblymen as there will be 10 more assemblymen.
2. There will be minimal variation between the electoral seat sizes. Money politics in previously small seats will now be more expensive and hopefully reduced.
3. A larger rural seat will likely include semi-urban or urban electors who are less influenced by money politics due to their higher economic status and wider exposure to national issues.
4. A larger rural seat will make it harder to track individual voters on their voting pattern and be subjected to political persecution.
5. There will be simplification and streamlining in administration since the local authority will have to deal with fewer MPs and assemblymen, saving time all round.
6. Selangor can lead the way towards a democratic era of the 21st century, rather than having Malaysia earn the dubious distinction of having the most unequal delimitation practice in the world.

For Penang, it would have been 39 assemblymen.

If they had done that, they would have avoided the current pain of going to the courts to force the EC to do their job professionally. Unfortunately, they had not even had the courtesy to give us a reply. – December 8, 2017.

* Wong Piang Yow is an activist with electoral reform group Tindak Malaysia.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.