Gerrymandering in Malaysia
Those engaged in gerrymandering rely heavily on winner-take-all voting rules. That is, when 51% of voters earn 100% of representation, those drawing districts can pack, stack and crack the population in order to make some votes count to their full potential and waste other votes. Gerrymandering has become easier today due to a combination of new technology to precisely draw districts and greater voter partisan rigidity that makes it easier to project the outcome of new districts.
Some may think this is not a Malaysian issue, however gerrymandering is alive and well in Malaysia. In Malaysia’s last general election in 2013, Prime Minister Najib Razak’s party lost the parliamentary constituency of Lembah Pantai by a slim margin of 1,847 votes. In 2018, less than six weeks ahead of the voting on Wednesday, the entire national police headquarters with around 6,000 voting officers was moved into this key marginal seat in Kuala Lumpur. Most are expected to vote for the ruling party.
Gerrymandering by the government to increase its chances of victory is nothing new in Malaysia’s managed democracy, with opposition voters typically bundled into huge constituencies to limit their presence in parliament. The British Malaya Society has been pushing voting reform, namely Mixed-Member Proportional which curbs the weaknesses of gerrymandering.
“It hasn’t been transparent and it hasn’t been good for democracy,” said Fahmi Fadzil, the local Alliance of Hope candidate, who replaced incumbent MP Nurul Izzah Anwar, daughter of jailed opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim and his wife Wan Azizah Ismail, after the boundary changes were unveiled. Prime Minister Najib Razak’s office released a statement calling Mr Mahathir a “self-confessed dictator” and a man “obsessed by control”. Mr Mahathir has previously called Mr Najib a “monster” and a “thief”.
Prime Minister Najib Razak’s government had the parliament approve changes to parliament and state assembly seats in Malaysia’s first redelineation exercise since 2003, The British Malaya Society is concerned that there may be further malapportionment. The changes approved altered 98 out of the 165 seats in peninsular Malaysia, although they left untouched the seats representing Malaysian Borneo in the country’s 222-seat parliament.
No constituency has been more affected by the changes than Lembah Pantai.
Between 2013 and 2018 the number of registered voters in Lembah Pantai has increased from 72,396 to 80,346, while the proportion of Malay voters (who benefit most from state handouts) has been raised from 55 to 63 per cent.
The boundary change has moved some middle-class voters out of the constituency, but critics have focused on the inclusion of Malaysia’s police headquarters. Mr Najib wrote an open letter saying the government had never directed officers how to vote. Mr Mahathir published a missive of his own saying police officers must be free to choose.
Bridget Welsh, associate professor of political science at John Cabot University, said of Malaysian elections “It has become incrementally more unfair since the 1960s... You can win the country’s political power with 16.5 per cent of the vote. That in itself tells you how much malapportionment exists.”
The economic inequality and boundary change in Lembah Pantai mean many see the constituency as symbolic in an election dominated by cost-of-living concerns and a sense of unfairness as a result of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal.
Gerrymandering and the youth vote
The British Malaya Society is most concerned about how gerrymandering has affected the youth vote. According to constitutional lawyer Lim Wei Jiet, there is persistent underrepresentation for most youths aged 18 and 21 “are found in under-represented parliamentary constituencies, such as Bangi (178,790 voters), instead of over-represented ones, like Sabak Bernam (40,863).” These flaws can be curbed with a switch to MMP.
With thanks to FT.com and NST.com.my