THE Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (BERSIH 2.0) has called for the current election constituency boundaries to be reviewed and redrawn before the 15th General Election (GE15) to address the long-standing problems of malapportionment and gerrymandering.
Reform-minded state governments must be proactive to take the lead in this reform if the Federal Government is unwilling to do so, the group said in a statement today.
BERSIH 2.0 has also expressed concerns that the problems of malapportionment will become even more serious when the lowering of voting age to 18 (Undi18) and the automatic voter registration (AVR) are implemented as the youth are predominantly living in the urban areas for education and work.
“Currently the number of voters in urban constituencies are already much higher than those of rural constituencies, some by three to four times. The disparity may become six to eight times after Undi18 and AVR come into force,” the group said.
According to BERSIH 2.0, the biggest responsibilities of such problems lie with the Election Commission that has failed to uphold the Federal Constitution and rectify the problems in the last few rounds of constituency delimitation exercise that is conducted every eight years.
“It has failed to respond to important socio-demographic changes over the years due to migration and urbanisation,” the group added.
Such trends, if not addressed soon, will further undermine the principle of ‘one voter, one vote’ and the election results will become distorted, it further warned. – Aug 12, 2021
Photo credit: BFM
