Picture Credit: TindakMalaysia
This remains the Malaysia Day Message from Tindak Malaysia 2024!
PRESS STATEMENT . . .
Instead of harping on the supposed one-third representation for East Malaysia, let's focus on equalising voting powers within regions and among regions in East Malaysia.
Generally speaking, the Malaysia Act 1963 was used for justifying the need for 1/3 representation of East Malaysia in Dewan Rakyat. Tindak Malaysia has debunked such argument time and again.
When one argues for one-third representation of East Malaysia, one misses the obvious problem of territorial delineation in East Malaysia, i.e. the vast gap between urbanised and rural constituencies. Voting power disparity among constituencies in Sabah and Sarawak was significant and undermines the equality of voters throughout these regions.
Deviation Limits . . .
It's time that we introduce +/-20 per cent deviation limits on constituency electorate sizes (within states and in the future within East Malaysia).
New constituencies should appear more in urban areas, instead of the old practice of introducing undersized rural constituencies (more vulnerable to electoral manipulation during election season).
Let's work towards a goal where Sabahan and Sarawakian are treated equally irrespective of ethnicity, urbanisation level, political choices, and other demographic characteristics.
This remains the Malaysia Day Message from Tindak Malaysia 2024.
Malaysia Act . . .
Malaysia Day is when we celebrate the formation of Malaysia as we know it (based on the enforcement of the Malaysia Act 1963).
Rural States . . .
Sabah and Sarawak were perceived as largely rural states.
However, the 2020 census has indicated that 54.7 per cent and 57 per cent of the population of Sabah and Sarawak respectively reside in urban areas.
When constituency delineation was introduced in Sabah and Sarawak in the mid-late 1960s, the parameters for delineation utilised were vague in terms of equalisation.
While the 13th Schedule called for the equalisation of constituencies for given State, it gave exceptions for rural constituencies where rural constituencies can have as little as half of the electors of an urban constituency. In practice, the first delineation of Sabah resulted in an unusual situation where the largest electorate and smallest electorate constituencies were rural (for the DUN level).
Constituency . . .
At the parliamentary level (using 1969 data), the largest constituency of Sabah was semi-urban, and the smallest was rural.
For Sarawak, the largest parliamentary constituency (Bandar Kuching) was urban, and the smallest (Julau) was rural. A similar pattern appeared at the Sarawak DUN level.
In today's situation (focusing at the parliamentary level), urbanised constituencies have too many electors and these undermine the voting powers of urban voters.
For example, the most populous constituency of Sabah was Sepanggar (urban) which had 108,370 voters (2022) and the smallest in Sabah was Kimanis (rural) with 40,763 voters (2022). This difference was 2.65 times.
Extremely Dire . . .
The situation in Sarawak was extremely dire.
The most populous constituency in Sarawak was Miri (143,229) (urban) and the smallest was Igan (28,290) (rural).
The difference was 5.06 times!
Not only that, there are cases where malapportionment disrupts equal voting power among rural and urban constituencies.
For example, in Sabah, Keningau (rural) should be considered as having too many voters, more voters than Kota Kinabalu (urban) or adjacent Ranau (rural).
In Sarawak, Hulu Rajang (rural) has far fewer voters than Baram (rural).
Happy Malaysia Day!
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this Press Statement do not necessarily represent those of the Center for Policy Initiatives (CPI).
This Press Statement by Danesh Prakash Chacko,
Director, TindakMalaysia Network Services PLT, first appeared here . . . https://web.facebook.com/share/p/gnzAowCc84Yvky5a/
