EC's delineation proposal for Sarawak defies logic
Rise of Sarawak EffortsPublished: Jan 21, 2015 11:54 AM | Updated: Jan 21, 2015 12:41 PM
COMMENT Rise of Sarawak Efforts (Rose), a group of concerned citizens, is unhappy with the unequalised constituencies proposed by the Election Commission (EC) in its recent electoral delineation and delimitation exercise for Sarawak.
After detailed analysis of the EC proposals to increase Sarawak’s state assembly seats by 11 constituencies (from 71 to 82), Rose believes that the EC has failed to comply with its constitutional obligations as defined by Section 2 (c), Part 1 of the 13th Schedule to the Federal Constitution, which states:
“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.”
Although duty-bound to adhere to this key principle, the EC has not done so for reasons unknown...
COMMENT
The 'one vote, one value' principle has been further eroded.
COMMENT Rise of Sarawak Efforts (Rose), a group of concerned citizens, is unhappy with the unequalised constituencies proposed by the Election Commission (EC) in its recent electoral delineation and delimitation exercise for Sarawak.
After detailed analysis of the EC proposals to increase Sarawak’s state assembly seats by 11 constituencies (from 71 to 82), Rose believes that the EC has failed to comply with its constitutional obligations as defined by Section 2 (c), Part 1 of the 13th Schedule to the Federal Constitution, which states:
“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.”
Although duty-bound to adhere to this key principle, the EC has not done so for reasons unknown.
To date, despite repeated requests by political parties and interested civil society groups, the EC has not provided voters and the general public with any rationale as to how it arrived at its proposals.
State constituencies with huge numbers of electors, like Pelawan (N54 - 31,388 voters) and Pending (N10 - 30,881 voters) did not see their boundaries redrawn or any reduction in the number of voters.
Instead, areas redrawn are rural constituencies like Murum (N66 - 7,648 voters), Telang Usan (N77 - 6,691 voters) and Gedong (N26 – 6,340 voters).
Furthermore, blatant discrepancies like Padungan (N9 - 22,873 voters) and Satok (N8 - 13,580 voters) which are urban state assembly seats within Kuching City and situated just next to each other, were not redrawn for reasons only known to the EC.
The entrenched democratic principle of ‘One Vote, One Value’ has been further eroded. If based on 82 state seats and 31 parliamentary seats and the number of voters on EC’s electoral roll as at April 30, 2014, the average number of voters for each state constituency, is 13,526 while for Parliament it is 35,778.
To ensure compliance with the above constitutional principle and to ensure each voter has a vote of equal value, the number of voters in each state seat should not deviate too far from this Electoral Quotient (EQ).
With the new EC proposals, one vote in Telang Usan is now worth 4.69 times that of a vote in Pelawan. One vote in Gedong is now worth nearly five times (4.95 times) that of a vote in Pelawan.
The EC’s proposals hence do not improve the variations from the said average, but instead have worsened them.
Instead of enhancing democracy by equalising the value of votes, the EC has undermined democracy by unfairly redrawing constituency boundaries. EC’s proposals are thus defective, unfair and undemocratic.
'Equalised Sarawak'
Together with Tindak Malaysia, Rose wishes to propose a better, alternative proposal that comes in the form of an ‘Equalised Sarawak’ map with 82 state constituencies and 31 parliamentary constituencies.
This “Equalised Sarawak” map was made possible through the use of an open-source geographical information systems software called QGIS.
The new boundaries generated by Tindak and Rose better fulfil the constitutional principle of Section 2 (c), Part 1 of the 13th Schedule of the Federal Constitution.
What is glaringly obvious from the series of constituency maps that Rose (together with Tindak) have generated is that it achieves a far lesser degree of variation from the average number of voters in each state seat compared with the EC proposals. Graphs and maps showing the variations for every state and parliamentary seat can be viewed at our website.
The EC had previously stated that it employed a similar geographical system to come up with its proposals, called the ‘Election Geographical Information System’ (EGIS).
Why then did the variation from the EQ increase in its 2015 proposal, instead of decreasing? Why then are the EC’s 2015 proposals so unequal?
Rose therefore calls upon the EC to be transparent and to disclose the rationale of their proposed delineation and constituency review exercise to the general public.
Rose further calls upon the EC to disclose why its seemingly robust rationale does not comply with the requirements of Clause 2 (c) of the 13th Schedule.
Meanwhile, Rose urges all registered voters who are unhappy with the EC constituency delineation proposals to urgently mobilise groups of a 100 or more people within their constituencies to object to these unfair proposals of the EC.
We urge voters to lodge their objections by Feb 4, 2015 to EC’s office in Kuching. A sample copy of the objection form is available on our website.
If voters have inquiries or need further assistance with drafting their objections, they may contact the Rose team via email at my@sarawakrose.org.
RISE OF SARAWAK EFFORTS or Rose, is a group of concerned citizens aims to, among its other goals, to build awareness and to empower voters, in particular Sarawakian voters, about their rights.
After detailed analysis of the EC proposals to increase Sarawak’s state assembly seats by 11 constituencies (from 71 to 82), Rose believes that the EC has failed to comply with its constitutional obligations as defined by Section 2 (c), Part 1 of the 13th Schedule to the Federal Constitution, which states:
“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.”
Although duty-bound to adhere to this key principle, the EC has not done so for reasons unknown.
To date, despite repeated requests by political parties and interested civil society groups, the EC has not provided voters and the general public with any rationale as to how it arrived at its proposals.State constituencies with huge numbers of electors, like Pelawan (N54 - 31,388 voters) and Pending (N10 - 30,881 voters) did not see their boundaries redrawn or any reduction in the number of voters.
Instead, areas redrawn are rural constituencies like Murum (N66 - 7,648 voters), Telang Usan (N77 - 6,691 voters) and Gedong (N26 – 6,340 voters).
Furthermore, blatant discrepancies like Padungan (N9 - 22,873 voters) and Satok (N8 - 13,580 voters) which are urban state assembly seats within Kuching City and situated just next to each other, were not redrawn for reasons only known to the EC.
The entrenched democratic principle of ‘One Vote, One Value’ has been further eroded. If based on 82 state seats and 31 parliamentary seats and the number of voters on EC’s electoral roll as at April 30, 2014, the average number of voters for each state constituency, is 13,526 while for Parliament it is 35,778.To ensure compliance with the above constitutional principle and to ensure each voter has a vote of equal value, the number of voters in each state seat should not deviate too far from this Electoral Quotient (EQ).
With the new EC proposals, one vote in Telang Usan is now worth 4.69 times that of a vote in Pelawan. One vote in Gedong is now worth nearly five times (4.95 times) that of a vote in Pelawan.
The EC’s proposals hence do not improve the variations from the said average, but instead have worsened them.
Instead of enhancing democracy by equalising the value of votes, the EC has undermined democracy by unfairly redrawing constituency boundaries. EC’s proposals are thus defective, unfair and undemocratic.
'Equalised Sarawak'
Together with Tindak Malaysia, Rose wishes to propose a better, alternative proposal that comes in the form of an ‘Equalised Sarawak’ map with 82 state constituencies and 31 parliamentary constituencies.
This “Equalised Sarawak” map was made possible through the use of an open-source geographical information systems software called QGIS.
The new boundaries generated by Tindak and Rose better fulfil the constitutional principle of Section 2 (c), Part 1 of the 13th Schedule of the Federal Constitution.
What is glaringly obvious from the series of constituency maps that Rose (together with Tindak) have generated is that it achieves a far lesser degree of variation from the average number of voters in each state seat compared with the EC proposals. Graphs and maps showing the variations for every state and parliamentary seat can be viewed at our website.
The EC had previously stated that it employed a similar geographical system to come up with its proposals, called the ‘Election Geographical Information System’ (EGIS).
Why then did the variation from the EQ increase in its 2015 proposal, instead of decreasing? Why then are the EC’s 2015 proposals so unequal?
Rose therefore calls upon the EC to be transparent and to disclose the rationale of their proposed delineation and constituency review exercise to the general public.
Rose further calls upon the EC to disclose why its seemingly robust rationale does not comply with the requirements of Clause 2 (c) of the 13th Schedule.
Meanwhile, Rose urges all registered voters who are unhappy with the EC constituency delineation proposals to urgently mobilise groups of a 100 or more people within their constituencies to object to these unfair proposals of the EC.
We urge voters to lodge their objections by Feb 4, 2015 to EC’s office in Kuching. A sample copy of the objection form is available on our website.
If voters have inquiries or need further assistance with drafting their objections, they may contact the Rose team via email at my@sarawakrose.org.
RISE OF SARAWAK EFFORTS or Rose, is a group of concerned citizens aims to, among its other goals, to build awareness and to empower voters, in particular Sarawakian voters, about their rights.
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