IT was status quo in all six state elections on Saturday. 

However, Perikatan Nasional contested in Terengganu and made a clean sweep of all 32 seats.

When there was one single political party that ran the government in 1984, Singapore introduce a non-constituency member of parliament (NCMP) scheme. This scheme is a modification to the single-member simple plurality electoral system.

The reasons for the late prime minister Lee Kuan Yew introducing this scheme were mainly:

• To provide younger People’s Action Party (PAP) MP’s to sharpen their debating skills;
• The presence of opposition members in parliament would educate the younger generation of voters role and constitutional opposition and limits;
• The presence of non-PAP MPs in parliament would act as a check and balance against any governmental impropriety.

Lee proposed amendments to the constitution and the Parliamentary Elections Act to allow three to six opposition MPs to be represented in parliament, and subsequently in 2016, another amendment took place to allow from nine to 12 MPs to be represented in parliament.

The proposed changes to the constitution and Parliamentary Elections Act were first passed in parliament on July 25, 1984.  The seat was then first offered to the Workers Party, which had the highest number of votes among the losers in the opposition, in 1988.

Even though the seats are offered among the losers with the highest votes, the NCMPs have limited right, privileges, and duties attached to them. The elected MPs will not be entitled to vote in parliament or in any motion, bill, or amendment. Eventually, in 2016, the constitution was amended to give the NCMPs the same voting rights.

The NCMPs are subjected to the same qualifying criteria as elected MPs in Singapore.

Nonetheless, an additional requirement is that the candidates must be a member of a political party and should have polled at least 15% of votes in the constituency they had previously contested. The fact that the position is offered to them, the opposition members who qualify to become NCMPs are allowed to reject their seats in parliament.

We could learn from Singapore. This would be the first time ever in state polls where a single political party was able to make a clean sweep.

In a democratic country, checks and balances are vital to prevent the risk of centralisation of power to the government at hand.

This strange situation can potentially happen again, and before it does the federal and state governments should come out with laws that protect the interest of checks and balances.

As the Malays say, “sediakan payung sebelum hujan”. – August 14, 2023.

* Matilda George reads The Malaysian Insight.

* 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.