TIME has changed, so have the electorate.
When the delineation of constituencies in the state was carried out in 2005, it was met with mere symbolic challenge as the opposition then was too weak to mount any meaningful objection.
Moreover, the public and NGOs then paid scant attention to the exercise, while those who cared had limited avenues to air their views.
How time have change 10 years on, with the proliferation of news portals, advent of citizen journalists and perhaps most tellingly the explosion of Facebook users everyone has a public platform to express their opinions on everything.
Now no public exercise especially one as crucial as the delineation could escape public scrutiny.
When the State Assembly (Composition of Membership) Bill 2014 for the delineation was tabled at the sitting of the State Legislature last September the opposition front, Pakatan Rakyat (PR), had a field day voicing their objections.
The thrust of their arguments against the delineation boiled down to one word – gerrymandering.
They contended that the Election Commission connived with the ruling Barisan Nasional to carved out the new seats to favour the ruling coalition.
However, although PR had swelled their ranks in the august House significantly it still did not have the required one third to ‘kill’ the Bill.
But PR had a Plan B – turning to the public to support their objections and reasoning when the proposed delineation blueprint was put for public inspection.
A false alarm was triggered just before last Christmas when the EC announced the delineation exercise in Peninsular Malaysia had been put on hold due to severe flooding but that of Sarawak had passed the stage of public inspection.
This provoked an uproar from activist groups which called up thesundaypost for confirmation.
A check with state EC director Datu Takun Sunggah revealed that the ‘past public inspection’ notification was a mistake as the.
General observations
When the EC made known of its delineation plan on Jan 5, the opposition as expected reacted with a litany of objections.
In his usual boisterous style, state DAP chairman Chong Chieng Jen commented that the EC ‘might as well join BN’ whereas state PKR chairman Baru Bian declared the party would file in a judicial review on the ground that the EC’s proposal did not provide enough information to voters.
thesundaypost made a study on the proposed delineation plan based on observations of the state’s political practices over the years as well as the limited information available at present.
It also endeavoured to compare the number of voters in the 2011 state election and the 2013 general election with that of April 2014 as well as the outcomes of the two elections (2011-2013) to ascertain whether there were any manipulations or attempts at gerrymandering in the EC’s initial proposal with the intention of changing the outcome in the next state or general election.
In the EC’s current proposed re-delineation 11 new State constituencies will be created – Batu Kitang, Stakan, Serembu, Triboh, Gedong, Kabong, Tellian, Selirik, Murum, Samalaju and Long Lama – an increase from 71 to 82.
And comparing the total number of voters in the 2011 state election (979,796), as officially announced by the EC, with that of 2014 April (1,109,134) just released by the commission, there is an increase of 13.20 per cent or 129,338 voters within the three years.
This represents a stark increase in comparison to the growth the state’s population.
Due to a lack of population growth in 2014, the demographic make-ups between 2010 and 2013 were instead taken into account for the sake of comparison.
Within the afore-mentioned three years, based on the Malaysia Statistics Department official website, population of the state grew from 2.5 million to 2.62 million – up only 4.8 per cent.
Voters’ growth
A comparison between voter growths in the 2013 general election and the 2014 April electoral roll, however, shows a very small increase of just 2.32 per cent which has been described as ‘very reasonable’.
However, the 13.20 per cent growth in state voters between 2011 and 2013 seemed to be unusually or significantly ‘large’.
The highest jump in voters’ percentage was recorded in the state constituency of Kakus (31.22 per cent or 2,998 voters), followed by Satok (30.19 per cent or 3,149) and Piasau (28.57 per cent or 4,743).
The state constituency with highest decrease percentage was Telang Usan (50.88 per cent or 6,932), followed by Kalaka (48.30 per cent or 6,843) and Pelagus (45.22 per cent or 6,928).
The reduction is not surprising as all these areas are on the delineation list where part of their voters would be moved to the proposed new constituencies.
With new voters coming of age every year, it is naturally for the number of constituents to swell.
Conversely, it would be unusual for constituencies to experience decreasing numbers of voters unless these constituencies have undergone major changes such as a considerable delineation or mass voter exodus.
This is perhaps why it seems rather incredulous that a few federal constituencies are experiencing a drop in the number of voters when the 2013 electoral roll is used to compare with the latest registration of voters as of April 2014.
In Bintulu (parliamentary) for example, even though a new state seat (Samalaju) has been created within it, records show a reduction of 2,006 voters in that particular constituency – from 59,893 to 57,887.
Furthermore, the parliamentary constituency of Lawas also has 707 fewer voters (from 18,845 to 18,138) while counterparts Tanjong Manis has 190 fewer (from 19,215 to 19,025) and Batang Lupar has 148 fewer (from 27,360 to 27,212).
Apart from the four state constituencies within Bintulu, the rest within Lawas, Tanjong Manis and Batang Lupar are not affected by the delineation exercise.
For Tanjong Manis and Batang Lupar, since the numbers of voters are low, the reductions could be due to deaths or migrations from the constituencies.
For Bintulu and Lawas, however, the drop of 2,006 and 707 in voters needs to be clarified because the figures are too big to be dismissed outright, amounting to 3.47 and 3.89 per cent respectively.
In all areas under delineation, there is a general increase in terms of voters – some more than the others.
A total increase of 10,529 voters is seen in five urban constituencies – Padungan, Pending, Batu Lintang, Kota Sentosa and Batu Kawah, leading eventually to the creation of the new constituency of Batu Kitang.
The assessment on the current delineation is made on the assumption that parliamentary boundaries stay the same while those for state constituencies, not affected by the delineation, remain unchanged.
For the sub-urban seats of Asiajaya and Muara Tuang, the total number of constituents was 32,619 in 2011 but in 2014, the figure had increased to 39,029 – a sharp spike of 6,410. Perhaps for this reason, the creation of a new constituency (Stakan) was proposed.
Of all the state constituencies, the one most affected in this delineation exercise is Batu Lintang which not only has lost 3,193 voters (presumably to the new constituency of Batu Kitang) but has also been proposed to come under the parliamentary constituency of Bandar Kuching instead of Stampin.
Questions have been asked on whether the electoral roll has been manipulated to increase BN’s chances of wresting back Stampin in the coming election by lumping all the opposition supporters (mainly Chinese) in one constituency – Bandar Kuching.
EC’s rebuttal
If what the state EC director Datuk Takun Sunggah has told thesundaypost – that about 70 per cent of the voters in new constituency of Batu Kitang is Chinese – is anything to go by, then accusations of EC manipulation to weaken the opposition in Stampin are baseless as this parliamentary constituency remains a Chinese majority seat.
Batu Lintang is presently held by PKR’s See Chee How who won with a majority of 8,381 in the 2011 state election.
As the total number of voters in Batu Lintang as of April 2014 was as high as 24,640 and assuming that the Batu Lintang electoral roll remains largely unchanged – except for the decrease of 3,193 voters – PKR still maintains a high chance of retaining the seat.
Power-sharing
On the whole, except for the stark increase (14.37 per cent) and decrease of voters in the parliamentary constituencies of Bintulu and Lawas, the asymmetry perhaps is most glaring between the numbers of voters in the urban and rural constituencies. This is not being addressed in this delineation exercise.
The difference in voters’ populations can be as high as 23,794. For instance, an urban constituency such as Pending has as many as 30,881 voters whereas a rural constituency such as Ba Kelalan as few as 7,087 voters.
After the delineation, the urban constituencies will continue to have much higher voter-population densities than the rural constituencies, prompting the comment that a vote in an urban constituency is worth less than that in a rural constituency.
Questions are also being asked as why some constituencies with relatively smaller areas and lower voting population densities are delineated whereas some big areas with a substantial voters’ population remain untouched or unaffected.
To answer these questions, one perhaps has to look into the nature of politics in Sarawak. Apparently, the composition of the partners in the ruling alliance and the racial population ratio are the determining factors.
In the proposed delineation, out of the 11 seats, one is a Chinese majority seat (Batu Kitang); three are Iban majority seats (Stakan, Selirik and Samalaju); two Bidayuh majority seats (Triboh and Serembu); two Orang Ulu majority seats (Murum and Long Lama) and three Malay-Melanau majority seats (Gedong, Kabong and Tellian).
At a cursory glance, coincidentally or by design, the numbers and the areas of the seats created, somehow, seem to be guided by the state BN’s power-sharing principle whereby one of the main factors at play is consensus on distribution of seats between the component parties – Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB), Sarawak United Peoples’ Party (SUPP), Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) and Sarawak Progressive Democratic Party (SPDP).
Ostensibly, the balance of power is weighed between the ruling coalition’s backbone PBB against the rest.
If the delineation is carried out as scheduled, the majority seats for the various communities are expected to increase as follows: Iban from 19 to 22; Malay-Melanau from 27 to 30; Bidayuh from six to eight; Orang Ulu from four to six and Chinese from 15 to 16.
Distribution of new seats
How these seats will be distributed among the state BN component parties will be determined by consensus.
PBB, showing clockwork consistency in winning or defending all its seats in previous elections, is expected to have the lion’s share of the newly-created areas while the rest of the seats will be fairly distributed among the other coalition partners, according to their strength in the newly-delineated constituencies.
It is, thus, highly speculative that PBB will continue to maintain its democratic facade by claiming five out of the 11 new seats created.
If the party were to claim six seats, it would mean PBB holding 41 seats against 41 seats allocated the component parties.
One may ask why is that the Malay-Melanau community (Malay, about 650,000 and Melanau,160,000) which come second in terms of population have the most seats created for them?
This can be explained by the fact that after 30 years of helming the state, the former chief minister Tun Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud, has laid a strong political foundation for Malay/Melanau community.
The Iban community which have the highest population (about 750,000), were given 19 seats before the delineation compared to 27 of the Malay-Melanau community.
Some observers point to the Malay/Melanau parliamentary constituency of Batang Sadong (20,977 voters) which has no area or voter-size issues but has been proposed for delineation to give birth to the new state constituency of Gedong.
It is learnt other such proposed delineations are Sadong Jaya (752 voters), Simunjan (7,885 voters) and Gedong (6,340 voters).
The same may also apply to two other Malay/Melanau constituencies – Tellian and Kabong.
Only two Iban majority State constituencies under the parliamentary constituencies of Hulu Rajang (as big as Pahang) and Baram (as big as the state of Perak) are delineated.
Other parliamentary constituencies such as Selangau, consisting of Tamin (14,469 voters), and Kakus (12,602 voters) which is bigger than Batang Sadong in terms of area and size, are left untouched.
For this delineation exercise, only one Chinese seat is proposed though the Chinese community is the third largest in the state with a population of 600,000.
All urban constituencies where Chinese voters congregate are not affected except for the creation of Batu Kitang.
As for the Bidayuh community with a population of about 200,000 and the Orang Ulu with about 160,000, two seats each have been created for them – Serembu and Triboh for the former and Murum and Long Lama for the latter.
The creation of Murum and Long Lama can be easily explained due to the huge size of Hulu Rajang and Baram.
Triboh in the parliamentary constituency of Serian (total voters – 34,602) and Serembu in Mambong (propose changing name to Puncak Borneo), have been delineated although both are only about the same size as Batang Sadong.
This same theory applied in the 2005 exercise where nine seats were delineated. There were two Chinese majority seats (Kota Sentosa and Pujut); two Iban majority seats (Balai Ringin and Bukit Saban); one Kedayan majority seat (Bekenu) and three Malay/Melanau seats (Jemoreng, Bukit Kota and Lingga).
Conclusion
As a multi-racial state, there is no denying racial harmony based on inter-racial trust and cooperation has been crucial.
For years, Sarawak’s politics has been evolving along this line and harmony has been preserved.
All the races in Sarawak may have moved forward at different paces but always towards the same direction of sustaining a harmonious society.
Pitted against the opposition’s assertion of ‘one person one vote’, the proposed delineation exercise has obviously fallen short of this democratic maxim.
However, one cannot help but ask whether at this stage of the country’s development, Sarawak has reached the political maturity to embrace the big change to the so-called ideal democratic practice of ‘one person one vote’?
A true democracy will naturally come about when the voters are ready for it.
At this stage, Sarawak can only enjoy a ‘partial’ but workable democracy.