‘Impossible’ to give all votes equal value, EC chairman says
(TMI) – The Election Commission (EC) has confirmed that its year-end redelineation exercise will involve an increase in federal seats but its chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof said it would be “impossible” to guarantee equal value for every vote.
Abdul Aziz cited geographical and logistical concerns with the opposition’s demand for “one man, one vote, one value” but added, however, that the EC would try its level best to give similar weightage to every vote.
“But realistically, how do you make it one man, one vote, one value? I think it is virtually impossible… we can spread the weightage here and there but apart from that, it would be too difficult,” he told The Malaysian Insider when contacted.
Explaining, Abdul Aziz said the population size and physical landscape in every constituency differs in every state, rendering it even more difficult for the EC to adhere to the opposition’s demand for equal value for every vote.
The opposition blamed its recent electoral losses on gerrymandering by the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN), claiming the vastly unequal value of votes across constituencies nationwide had allowed a government with minority support to rule the majority.
In the just-concluded May 5 polls, BN recaptured federal power with 133 federal seats to Pakatan Rakyat’s (PR) 89 but lost the popular vote for the first time since 1969, scoring just under 48 per cent of the votes cast to PR’s 51 per cent.
Abdul Aziz went on to cite the differences in the terrains of Borneo’s rugged interiors in Sabah or Sarawak and the crowded metropolitan streets in cities over in the peninsula.
“In Sabah for example, we take Kinabatangan… the size of this one constituency is as big as the entire state of Pahang… but the number of voters are small.
Read more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/impossible-to-give-all-votes-equal-value-ec-chairman-says/
