WON’T HELP ANYONE’
Last month, the Court of Appeal lifted a stay order preventing the Election Commission (EC) from redrawing Selangor’s electoral boundaries, pending an appeal by the state government.
Every corner of Malaysia’s territory is part of one of 222 parliamentary constituencies, which are subdivided into two or more state constituencies.
A redelineation exercise is a review of a territory encompassed by constituencies to see if its boundaries are relevant for current times and to make changes to them if necessary.
EC’s proposal for the redelineation was met with criticism, where opposition leaders accused the commission of being biased and that the exercise would put the opposition at a disadvantage.
However, said Universiti Utara Malaysia political analyst Dr Azizuddin Sani, it had been a long time since a redelineation was carried out and such an exercise was timely.
“Recently, it became an issue because the government doesn’t have the two-third majority in Parliament to do this.
“But, the thing is, we can’t wait for any party to have the twothird majority.
“The number of Malaysians is increasing and we need to do the redelineation now.”
On who will benefit from the redelineation, Azizuddin said all quarters needed to stop accusing each other and start looking at the reality.
“The real question is ‘who will Malays vote for this time around’ because it depends on them, not any redelineation.
“Re-delineation or not, voters’ perception will keep changing based on current issues.”