COMMENT | Election system designed to make new parties like Muda fail

COMMENT | Here's a fact that many people will find hard to accept. Pakatan Harapan won in 2018 due to a flawed electoral system.

It's not because they won the majority of votes, or won the popular vote They were just lucky that BN's gamble on PAS as a third force backfired and the split votes happened to favour Harapan instead of BN.

And with the next general election set to become a bout among four coalitions, these flaws could likely hurt newer parties such as Muda.

If you're not clear how elections in Malaysia work, we use the first past the post (FPTP) system.

In this system, it is not who has the most votes win. Rather who comes in first place wins.

Let's imagine how an election in a mixed constituency with 10,000 voters and four coalitions contesting will turn out.

In this scenario, BN gets 3,000 votes, Harapan 2,400, Perikatan Nasional 2,100, and Warisan Plus (including Muda and Pejuang) 2500 votes...