By Nurul Anna Mausar

I noted with interest that Sarawak DAP is urging the state government to make a formal representation to the Election Commission (EC) to adopt a constituency model based on voter population, with a proposed range of 17,340 to 23,460 voters per constituency, to ensure fair and equal representation in the state legislative assembly.

This is part of the Sarawak government’s move to allow the EC to expand the number of seats in the state assembly from 82 to 99.

I concur that while land mass can be a factor in determining the number of constituencies, the emphasis placed on land area to justify the additional 17 seats overstates its importance and ignores voter population as the key criterion.

While many rural constituencies have fewer than 15,000 voters each, most urban constituencies have more than 35,000.

The largest constituency in Sarawak has seven times as many voters as the smallest one. How is this a representative democracy?

I urge Peninsular Malaysian leaders to also make representations to the EC and ensure that when the federal redelineation exercise is carried out next year, the principle used is based on voter population.

At present, there are huge urban Dewan Rakyat seats with more than 100,000 voters, such as Bangi, Petaling Jaya, Damansara, Seputeh, Subang and so on. Meanwhile, many rural seats have only one-third of that number, in places like Marang and Machang.

Who does this benefit, when the vote of an urban non-Malay voter is only worth one-third of a rural Malay voter’s? The answer is clearly PAS and its allies in Perikatan Nasional.

It’s time to apply restorative justice in how we draw our parliamentary and state assembly seat boundaries.

Nurul Anna Mausar is a law student and an FMT reader.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.