PKR will petition the Yang Dipertuan Agong over the Election Commission’s (EC) redelineation proposal, which it claims runs against the principles laid out in the federal constitution.

“Redelineation, as per our Malaysian federal constitution, is a process meant to provide voters ‘convenient opportunities of going to the polls’ and to keep the number of voters in constituencies within each state ‘approximately equal’,” said its election director Nurul Izzah Anwar.

“But in Malaysia’s case, the EC’s actions betray the very principles of redelineation enshrined in the constitution […] The latest redelineation exercise then exacerbates this situation even further,” she told a press conference in PKR’s headquarters in Petaling Jaya today.

She said the details are being finalised, but she urged members of the public to lend their support for the initiative.

She also urged members of the public to join the Bersih 5 pro-electoral reform rally on Nov 19, and for voters to lodge a complaint through Bersih’s Redelineation Action and Research Team (Dart) if they find that they have been shifted to another constituency without cause.

She said the current redelineation process must be rejected, until an independent Boundaries Commission is set up, as per the recommendations of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Electoral Reform in 2012.

In the meantime, she said PKR and the PKR-led Selangor government will be discussing with stakeholders on the matter, to look at possible legal recourse on the matter.

“No one should tolerate systematic electoral fraud and the stealing of an election even before the first ballot is cast,” she said.

She claimed that under the EC’s proposal, BN could win almost 10 percent more of the parliament’s 222 seats without gaining a single additional vote.

Selangor would be at risk of falling to BN, despite its Menteri Besar Azmin Ali commanding 65 percent of the popular support of Selangorians, she said.

“The recent redelineation returns the BN government to a comfortable but undeserved two-thirds majority […]

“Assuming the same level of support (as the 2013 general election) and straight fights in the constituencies, the EC’s new redelineation could cost the opposition a hefty number of seats, in addition to not winning any new seats at all.

“According to our calculations, the new redelineation leaves the opposition with possibly less than a third of parliamentary seats (less than 74 seats).

“Letting the incumbent government have a two-thirds majority is akin to putting a blank cheque into BN’s hands,” she said.

The redelineation exercise officially started on Sept 15, with a one-month period for public viewing and objections.

The EC’s proposal would see the boundaries of 128 parliamentary constituencies redrawn.

Critics of the exercise had said that the proposed boundaries would strengthen Umno’s control of the Dewan Rakyat, at the cost of causing greater racial polarisation in Malaysia

This is because the new boundaries supposedly creates constituencies that are dominated by one ethnic group or another, rather than a multiracial ethnic composition that is closer to that of Malaysia as a whole, or one that is similar to the racial profile of the state where the constituency is located.

Your Kiniguide to the redelineation exercise