EC: WE WANT TO REVIEW REDELINEATION

Chairman says EC looking to study whether Parliament can nullify last year’s pre-GE14 exercise

THE Election Commission (EC) is looking to see if Parliament can allow amendments to the redelineation exercise carried out just before the 14th General Election (GE14).

Its chairman, Azhar Azizan Harun, said the commission was looking into requesting amendments to the redelineation, which was gazetted in Parliament despite opposition from certain quarters, who said it was gerrymandering on the part of the then government.

“We are looking into ways to review the redelineation exercise. In this case, we are looking to study whether Parliament can nullify the exercise, which was approved last year.

“If that is not possible, then we will look at other methods.

“We will analyse the methods and study the economic, racial impact and the voting trend, and we will study whether it was fair and we will make a proposal,” he said in Parliament yesterday.

Azhar said he hoped to have the amendments made before the 15th General Election.

“According to the Constitution, you cannot amend the redelineation.

“Because redelineation can only be done every eight years.

“So if we were to review according to the Federal Constitution we must do it and solve it within two years and not more than that.”

The redelineation before the 14th General Election saw changes to 12 parliamentary and 28 state constituencies.

PIC BY MOHD YUSNI ARIFFIN Dewan Rakyat Speaker Datuk Mohamad Ariff Md Yusof (centre) with Bersih chairman Thomas Fan (left) and Election Commission chairman Azhar Azizan Harun ahead of a meeting in Parliament yesterday.