PETALING JAYA (June 9, 2013): Astonishing as it may seem, it
is technically possible for a political party to win a simple majority in
Parliament and form the government by garnering a mere 2.21 million votes (or
16.7%) of the total electorate.
Because of the imbalance of registered voters in the 222
parliamentary constituencies, there are currently only 4,408,975 voters or
33.22% of the total electorate of 13,268,110 in the 112 seats with smaller
numbers of registered voters.
The 112 constituencies have a very much smaller number of
registered voters, ranging from 15,791 (Putrajaya) to 56,280 (Kuantan), in
contrast with the remaining 110 constituencies with more voters, some in excess
of 100,000, with the highest being Kapar with 144,159 registered voters.
As such, a political party needs to just win by one vote in
these 112 seats – a third of which are in Sabah and Sarawak – to obtain a
simple majority and form the federal government.
Calculations by theSun show that if a party were to win
50.1% in each of these 112 seats, it would only need to get about 2,209,000
votes (or about 16.65% of the total electorate).
The actual calculation based on half the total voters plus 1
in each of the constituencies, puts the actual number at 2,208,353, which is a
mere 16.64 % of the total number of voters in the electoral roll during the
recently concluded 13th general election.
And if one were to consider voter turnout on polling day to
be around 80%, it would mean the actual number of votes needed to win the 112
seats would be even less, at around 1,767,117 or a mere 13.4% of the total
electorate.
Hence, the numbers are very compelling reasons for the
Election Commission (EC) to ensure that each vote should, as much as possible,
be accorded equal value or weight in all parliamentary constituencies.
On Saturday, the EC denied claims of inequality among
constituencies, claiming that critics had not considered the increase in voter
population over the last decade.
EC deputy chairman Datuk Wan Ahmad Wan Omar claimed the
voter population had increased and there had been much urban migration since.
"The inequality among the constituencies was not that
large when it was drawn up in 2002," said Wan Ahmad, adding it is unfair
to compare the number of voters like Kapar (144,159) to Putrajaya (15,791).
"When people talk about 'malapportionment', they refer
to the 2002 numbers. It is not fair to compare the present figures to the 2002
numbers," he said at a public forum themed "Constituency Delineation
– Knowing where to draw the lines", organised by the Bar Council.
Wan Ahmad said the EC would consider the 15% voter variance
rule for seats in the same category namely urban, semi-urban and rural seats
when conducting the next review.
If this rule is applied, the difference in the number of
voters between two urban constituencies or two rural constituencies would be
less than 15%.
Wan Ahmad said there have been many complaints over the high
variance percentage of voters between constituencies, adding that he agreed
that there were areas like Baling which were "hard to justify".
Baling, which is considered a rural seat, has 93,376 voters
compared to Alor Star, an urban seat in the same state with 69,189 voters.
The EC had last month announced it will study all proposals
thoroughly when it conducts the redelineation process.
Opposition leaders have also called for the "one man,
one vote, one value" ideal to be practised in light of the recent
election, where Pakatan Rakyat won 51% of popular vote, but only secured 89 of
the 222 parliamentary seats.
Under Article 113(2)(ii) of the Federal Constitution, a
redelineation exercise should be conducted between eight and 10 years from the
last one. The last time the EC conducted the redelineation exercise was in
2003.
Taken directly from The Sun Daily.
