The Tale Of Gerrymandering, Malapportionment, Re-delineation & Democracy

It is clearly stated in Article 113 of the Federal Constitution that the 13th Schedule, Part 1, Section 2 of the Federal Constitution (FC) empowers the Election Commission (EC) to redraw the election boundaries for both parliamentary and state assemblies.

Article 113(2) of the Federal Constitution states that the EC may redraw the boundaries from time to time in order to comply with the provisions under 13th Schedule. Therefore, in order to redraw the boundaries, three things must be observed namely:[1]

i. The current electoral boundaries are not in compliance with the 13th Schedule.

ii. The objective of re-delineation is to correct this non-compliance.

iii. The outcome of the re-delineation is that the non-compliance with the provisions of the 13th Schedule must have been corrected.

Under S. 2(2), 13th Schedule Federal Constitution, there are four conditions in which the EC ought to take into account in redrawing the electoral boundaries namely:

a) while having regard to the desirability of giving all electors reasonably convenient opportunities of going to the polls, constituencies ought to be delimited so that they do not cross state boundaries; and regard ought to be given to the inconveniences of state constituencies crossing the boundaries of federal constituencies;

b) regard ought to be given to the administrative facilities available within the constituencies for the establishment of the necessary registration and polling machines;

c) the number of electors within each constituency in a state ought to be approximately equal except that, having regard to the greater difficulty of reaching electors in the country districts and the other disadvantages facing rural constituencies, a measure of weightage for area ought to be given to such constituencies;

d) regard ought to be given to the inconveniences attendant on alterations of constituencies, and to the maintenance of local ties.

The EC is to comply to the four conditions listed above in exercising its jurisdiction to re-delineate the electoral boundaries as this is an implied safeguard against the manipulation of electoral boundaries known as gerrymandering – a hot topic as of late.

Gerrymandering – a big, bombastic word that incites excitement but yet is under defined. Gerrymandering as defined by Cambridge Dictionary[2] is as an occasion when someone in authority changes the borders of an area in order to increase the number of people within that area who will vote for a particular party or person. There are two methods in re-delineating a constituency namely “packing” where citizens with high tendency to vote for opposition will be packed together into one electorate, normally into a super-sized seat in urban centres and “cracking” where opposition votes are divided and integrated into electorates where the ruling coalition has sturdy support.

In the 13th General Election held in 2013 (GE13), Barisan Nasional (BN) who formed the government won 47.4% of popular votes as compared to the opposition at that time, Pakatan Rakyat (currently known as Pakatan Harapan) who won 50.8% of the total votes.[3] Due to malapportionment, BN was able to win 60% of parliamentary seats despite losing the popular vote.[4] Kai Ostwald, in his article “How to Win a Lost Election” insisted that this has caused a violation of the “one-person, one vote” principle which is fundamental to any democratic institution.

Malapportionment is when the number of voters distributed to constituencies differs widely from being “approximately equal”.[5] This can be seen during GE13 whereby the recommendation that Kapar which has a population of 144,000 under its electorate was deemed to be "approximately equal" to the constituency of Putrajaya which has a population of 15,000.

How malapportionment and gerrymandering will affect the voters is illustrated below.

Source: Bersih 2.0, Institut Darul Ehsan, Straits Times Graphics (https://static.straitstimes.com.sg/sites/default/files/articles/2018/02/03/st_20180203_xmapside_3737449.jpg)

Referring to the Laporan Kajian Semula Persempadanan 2018 by Suruhanjaya Pilihan Raya (SPR), it is clear that the issue of non-compliance to provisions of 13th Schedule has not been rectified in the recent re-delineation exercise by EC. For example, in Kelantan, P.019 Tumpat has 101,318 voters while P.030 Jeli has 43,233. In Selangor, the constituency of P.106 Damansara has the highest number of voters at 150,439 meanwhile the constituency of P.092 Sabak Bernam has the least number of voters at 37,126.[6]

The constituency of the Federal Territory of Putrajaya only consists of a population of 17,627. In comparison, around 17,000 votes are needed in order to secure a seat in Parliament for the constituency of Putrajaya while the votes of over 150,000 for the constituency of Damansara would only contribute to one Parliamentary seat.[7] This is a clear cut case of malapportionment and gerrymandering. Logically speaking, would a reasonable man with ordinary prudence deem a constituency of a population over 100,000 people would be “approximately equal” to a constituency of a population of over 10,000 people?

The extraordinarily small size of the constituency of Putrajaya has not been rectified despite criticism from GE13 and is still deemed to be “approximately equal” to the other constituencies which range from over 30,000 to over 150,000 people.

In Malaysia, we practice “first-past-the-post” where the person who receives the highest number of votes wins or winner takes all. The flaw of this system in Malaysia is that it is always lop-sided, because the translation of votes to number of seats is uneven among political parties. The largest party gets more seats than the smaller parties although the smaller parties receives more votes than the largest party.[8]

There have been various news articles criticizing the Malaysian government for its exercise of malapportionment and gerrymandering despite the denial of the Malaysian government in this matter. Malapportionment and gerrymandering is a serious issue as it affects democracy. A citizen may not be clearly deprived of his right to vote but if the value of his vote has been predetermined by the size of the constituency and by the way the electoral boundaries are drawn, his vote is as good as none.[9] How could one say that his right to vote has been exercised if the effects of that vote has been manipulated and neutralised? This would mean that the election held is superficial with no significance.

Although the 13th Schedule, Federal Constitution is there to protect our rights with regards to election, the provisions would be of little use if EC shows signs of biasness. The appointment of EC has to be reviewed and those appointed must be independent and impartial with no political affiliation.

All in all, even by putting politics aside, changes must be done. In the eyes of the law, there has been a clear violation as to the provisions of the 13th Schedule, Federal Constitution and this violation has yet to be rectified by EC despite objections and protests by some parties.

Citizens must not have the ‘tidak-apa’ attitude and close one eye as to the wrongdoings going on in the country. There is a Malay proverb that goes, ‘sikit-sikit lama-lama jadi bukit’ and this applies when it comes to voting. The thought that ‘my vote would not make a difference’ must be eradicated and you as a responsible citizen must take action to make a change. As the late Maya Angelou once said, “If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.”

The practice of gerrymandering and malapportionment, are they unfounded allegations or a disguised exercise with denials as a front? You decide. Your most powerful weapon as a citizen is your vote so make the most out of it.

Click here for footnotes