Redelineation will benefit BN, says researcher

Chan Kok Leong Melati A. Jalil Chan Kok Leong, Melati A. Jalil Updated 6 years ago · Published on 26 Mar 2018 11:47PM · 3 Comments

THE redelineation proposal to be tabled on Wednesday is expected to benefit Barisan Nasional, an elections analyst told a forum tonight.

“The grouping of voters according to race will benefit Umno, the lynchpin of BN,” said Ilham Centre director Hisommudin Bakar.

He cited the Lumut parliamentary seat, from which the Election Commission (EC) proposes to remove the Setiawan state seat, as an example of such a grouping.

PKR won Lumut in 2013 despite there being more than 10,000 advance voters from the Lumut naval base.

“The number of votes PKR won in the Sitiawan state seat covered the deficit,” the polls and voter sentiment researcher said at the forum GE14 Will Be Stolen at the KL Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall.

“But we are told the Sitiawan state seat may be taken out of Lumut in the redelineation proposal. If that happens, Pakatan Harapan cannot hope to win this seat.”

In the last elections in 2013, Lumut had three state seats – Pasir Panjang, Pangkor, and Sitiawan. PKR candidate Mohamad Imran Abdul Hamid beat BN-MCA’s Kong Cho Ha by polling 40,308 votes to his 32,140.

If Sitiawan is removed, the incumbent will be hard pressed to make up the difference, said Hisommudin.

The EC’s reason for removing Sitiawan was also outrageous, he said.

“How can the EC say it wants to remove Sitiawan to ease administration issues for the local government, when it is in the same area?”

He said it was the same situation with the Sembrong federal seat, where a Felda polling station was moved into the Paloh state seat after DAP lost by a narrow 103 votes in GE13.

“But I’ve been made to understand that the proposal aims to take Felda Kahang Barat and move it into Paloh. There’s more than 2,000 votes there and they are all Malay. It will make it much harder for DAP to win Paloh.”

Former Malaysian Bar president Ambiga Sreenevasan said it was outrageous for EC to embargo its proposal after presenting it to Parliament.

“There is no basis for the embargo. Institutions like EC exists to protect the interests of voters not political parties. If they are there to do that why can’t the disclose their final report to everyone,” said the prominent lawyer and former Bersih 2.0 chairman.

Tonight’s forum was organised by Bersih 2.0. Acting chairman Shahrul Aman Mohd Saari and Serdang MP Dr Ong Kian Ming were among the other panellist. – March 26, 2018.

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Comments

  • Unless there is a Malay "tsunami" from rural voters precipitated by Dr.Mahathir's entry again in politics that's why it is probably a foregone conclusion that BN will emerge victorious at federal level in GE14..

    Posted 6 years ago by MELVILLE JAYATHISSA · Reply

  • Of course the redeliniation will favour BN. Every change in electoral boundaries in the history of democratic voting has been designed to favour the incumbent government. Otherwise why do it? So what is this “election analyst” blabbing on about? The reality is that successive opposition’s have always attempted to heap blame for their OWN failures on to BN’s dirty electoral tactics. To be brutally optimistic, BN’s dirty tactics would account for < 10% of the votes they win. BN do not win elections. Opposition’s lose elections. Then they turn around and blame BN for their own failings. You only have to look at the garbage which has PH has churned out in their latest visionless, directionless and totally useless manifesto to understand why PH is about to lose another election

    Posted 6 years ago by Dennis Da Menace · Reply

  • What ever the out come......IN LAST GE 13 BN WON BY 48% OF THE ELECTORAL POPULAR VOTES AGAINST 52% FOR PAKATAN RAKYAT ...NOW GE 14 IF BN WON BY 40% OF THE ELECTORAL VOTERS WHERE DOES EC INTEGRITY STAND............ AND ALSO BN?

    Posted 6 years ago by Mohanarajan murugeson · Reply