ALMOST all of the objections raised by voters  against proposed re-delineation of electoral boundaries in Selangor where thrown out by the Election Commission, according to the report tabled in Parliament today by Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Of 738 objectors, each representing at least 100 voters, 92.1% were thrown out for failing to meet requirements of a local enquiry, the report revealed. 

As for objections that did make it to the local inquiry, 81.4% of them were rejected by the EC.

The objections were made between January and February this year when the EC held its second and final round of public hearings on the proposed re-delineation exercise for parliamentary and state constituencies in the state. The local inquiries were held in March. 

Voters’ complaints were similarly themed: Altered boundaries and the shifting of voters to and from neighbouring areas had distorted the ethnic composition of constituencies. 

Some voters also complained of new boundaries that ran down the middle of localities, such as housing estates, some of which lacked direct road access to the constituencies that they were being shifted to. 

Among the objectors was Selangor Menteri Besar Azmin Ali, who told the EC to avoid creating “single-race constituencies”, and that boundaries were unconstitutional under Section 2 of Schedule 13 of the federal constitution, which requires the EC to have regard for local community ties in its re-delineation proposals. 

The MB’s objections, made at the local inquiry level on March 1, were thrown out. 

In the report tabled by Najib today, the EC had also included all 18 parliamentary seats listed in the first redelineation proposal last year. 

Out of the 22 parliamentary constituencies in Selangor, 18 constituencies were initially slated to have their boundaries altered prior to the first round of local enquiries between January and December. After the local enquiries, five parliamentary constituencies had their boundaries changed: Ampang, Kuala Selangor, Gombak, Pandan, and Tanjong Karang. 

It was these seats that much of the state’s voters’ contention were focussed on, according to the two-volume 1,000 page report that detailed voters’ objections in all the states and federal territories, except Sabah and Sarawak. 

The uneven distribution of voters is also evident in the parliamentary and state seats in Selangor, with the biggest seats having four times more voters than the smallest seats. 

The parliamentary seat of Damansara, for example, has 150,439 voters compared to Sabak Bernam’s 37,126 voters, according to the EC report. 

Meanwhile, the state seat of Subang Jaya, has 66,059 voters whereas the smallest proposed state constituency, Sungai Air Tawar, has only 15,033 voters.

According to calculations by electoral reform pressure group Engage, voters in BN seats nationwide have an average 1.6 times the voting power of seats controlled by the opposition.

The average number of voters in a BN parliamentary constituency is 48,288 compared, with opposition average of 79,436.

Malapportionment also meant that a simple parliamentary majority, or control of 112 seats, could be achieved with just 33% of the votes, according to a briefing by Engage member and political analyst Wong Chin Huat yesterday

Selangor has 2.078 million registered voters. 

The EC is mired in a protracted legal battle with the opposition-controlled Selangor government. The Court of Appeal will tomorrow rule on an appeal by the state government after it lost its bid at the High Court for a judicial review to declare the re-delineation exercise unconstitutional. – March 28, 2018.