SHAH ALAM, July 2: In addition to the fraud and discrepancies in the 13th General Election (GE-13), the crippling of the election system in Malaysia is also due to the unfair delimitation done by the Election Commission (EC).
Some examples of unfair delimitation, according to the Bukit Antarabangsa Assemblyman, Azmin Ali, is the large difference in the number of voters between the Seri Serdang constituency, 72,769 voters compared to the Permatang constituency which only has 19,636 voters.
This happens because according to Azmin, the re-delineation of border delimitation carried out over the years is not backed by fixed criteria in line with the principles of democracy.
Therefore, he suggested for the State Government to lead efforts to recruit and establish a professional and credible committee to review and provide recommendations on issues concerning delimitation of constituencies in the State of Selangor.
“The EC’s role should focus more on the handling of elections and to not be burdened with the responsibility to submit recommendations for new constituency boundaries because it affects the credibility and independence of the EC,” said Azmin when debating on the address of DYMM the Sultan of Selangor in the First Term session of the 13th Selangor State Assembly here yesterday.
Azmin said that the ‘Boundary Commission for England’ was established to provide recommendations for new boundaries for constituencies every five years.
According to him, the committee can emulate the criteria in the ‘Boundary Commission for England’ criteria which is a five percent election quota, geographical size, special geographical considerations, local government boundaries, existing boundaries and local ties as guidelines to set election boundaries.
