EC asked to explain seats with over 100,000 voters
Published on: Sunday, September 18, 2016
Kuala Lumpur: DAP Parliamentary Leader Lim Kit Siang wants the Election Commission (EC) to explain why 13 parliamentary seats in the peninsula would have more than 100,000 voters each for the 14th General Election in 2018.He stressed in a statement that there were six such seats in Selangor, two in Johor and the rest in Malacca, Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu.Lim described the current electoral delineation in the peninsula as "a perversion of the constitutional mandate of the EC".
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Article 113 of the Federal Constitution, he stressed, calls for malapportionment to be addressed, not allow gerrymandering.In 2013, then Chairman of the EC, Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusuf, also cited the 13th Schedule of the Federal Constitution to assure that no seat would have more than 100,000 voters, recalled Lim who is also Gelang Patah MP. He argued the onus was on the EC to prove that it was not gerrymandering, as in the past, to keep Umno in power.He cited three reasons why the EC should explain.
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Firstly, the disclosure in late 2013 by a former EC Chairman, Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman, that he had gerrymandered redelineations to ensure Umno remains in power.Secondly, a preliminary study of the current redelineation exercise indicates that it was designed to keep Umno in power.
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Thirdly, the exercise was designed to eliminate Opposition leaders in vulnerable seats."Muhyiddin Yassin in Pagoh and Nurul Izzah Anwar in Lembah Pantai are among those targetted for elimination," alleged the DAP veteran.He referred to Opposition leaders — Liew Chin Tong, Aminolhudu Hassan and Mohd Khuzzan Abu Bakar — telling the media that the redelineation of Pagoh was "politically-motivated".Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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