Kedah Menteri Besar Ahmad Bashah Md Hanapiah is the state's "biggest beneficiary" in the Election Commission’s (EC) redelineation exercise, claims PKR's Alor Setar MP Gooi Hsiao Leung.

Bashah won his seat, Bakar Bata, by a slim majority of 895 votes in the last national polls in 2013.

“The EC has proposed to transfer 1,785 voters comprising of 63 percent non-Malay voters out of the MB's constituency, and moving in 1,365 voters comprising of 91 percent Malay voters from the adjoining state seat of Anak Bukit into his seat,” alleged Gooi, in a statement today.

“No explanation is given by EC for what appears to be an arbitrary shift of voters along racial lines in the MB's seat, other than placing the MB in a more secure position to face the next election,” added the Kedah PKR deputy chief.

Gooi (photo) said the latest redelineation of seat boundaries proposed by EC affects 13 state seats in seven parliamentary constituencies in Kedah.

The state seats affected are Kuah, Ayer Hangat, Derga, Bakar Bata, Kota Darul Aman, Alor Mengkudu, Anak Bukit, Kubang Rotan, Pengkalan Kundor, Bukit Selambau, Sidam, Merbau Pulas, and Lunas.

'Opposition seats targeted'

Gooi also claimed that the EC appeared to be targeting seats won by the opposition with slim majorities, by moving out non-Malay voters from those areas.

He cited as an example the Alor Mengkudu seat, where the EC has proposed to transfer out voting districts with a high number of non-Malay voters totaling 2,186 voters.

According to Gooi, the EC has proposed to move 1,188 voters – 77.5 percent of them Malay – from Pengkalan Kundor, which is a different state seat, to Alor Mengkudu.

“In the Bukit Selambau seat won by PKR with a slim majority of 530 votes, the EC has proposed to transfer out 8,145 voters from the Taman Ria Jaya voting district comprising of 52 percent non-Malay voters,” Gooi, who is also PKR’s supreme council member, said.

“In Merbau Pulas won by PAS with a majority of 633 votes, the EC has proposed transferring out voting districts with high percentage of non-Malay voters totaling 3,838 in order to increase the percentage of Malay voters in the seat,” he added.

Unequal number of voters

Gooi also cited examples in the EC proposal, where state seat Lunas with 44,938 voters, has more than double the number of voters in Kota Darul Aman.

Kota Darul Aman is situated in the capital city of Alor Setar, and has only 21,480 voters.

Gooi said Lunas has more voters than certain parliamentary seats such as Padang Terap with 42,877 voters and Langkawi with only 37,645 voters.

“State assemblypersons here will be required to serve more voters than parliamentarians,” Gooi said.

He pointed out “unjustifiably” large parliamentary constituencies with unequal weightage of voters such as Sungai Petani (101,829 voters), Baling (94,809 voters) and Kuala Kedah (91,478 voters).

In contrast, Padang Terap has 42,877 voters, Sik (47,045 voters) Jerlun (51,718 voters), Kubang Pasu (65,893 voters) and Alor Setar (73,687 voters).

“Malaysians must not be robbed yet again by electoral fraud and gerrymandering as witnessed by us in GE13 where the opposition had garnered 51 percent of the popular votes but only won 40 percent of parliamentary seats,” he said.

Gooi urged Kedahans to come out in full force to support Bersih 5’s convoy which will start in Kangar on Oct 1.

The convoy will travel southbound through Alor Setar and other parts of Kedah to protest the EC’s latest “perpetuation of the totally undemocratic and utterly unfair practice” in drawing up electoral boundaries, Gooi said.