The forthcoming parliamentary general election, scheduled for March 21 will be the 11th in our history as a nation. As is the regular practice, and in keeping with constitutional requirements, the Election Commission will organise and oversee the conduct of the election now that Parliament has been dissolved by the Yang Di Pertuan Agong on the advice of the prime minister.

This election sees the governing Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition led by Umno contesting against the opposition coalition led by PAS.

The opposition will be seeking to extend its parliamentary representation on the basis of justice and reforms while the BN will be seeking to increase its tally of seats to re-emphasise its 'developmental credentials' after suffering a mauling under former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad in the last election over the still unresolved Anwar Ibrahim fiasco.

Mahathir's successor, Abdullah Ahamd Badawi will be seeking a big a win as possible for Umno and the BN so as to shore up and legitimise his own unelected party position, failing which he will likely be challenged and dislodged at the next Umno election. The treatment of Anwar Ibrahim is still a key issue that will influence many voters.

Central as well in this forthcoming election will be the sharp contest for the heart and soul of the Malay-Muslim community, one that will see Umno pit its vision of the Islamic state against that of PAS'.

The consequences of this contest over Islam will affect everyone, no matter our creed, age or ethnicity since the arguments and creeping public manifestations of 'Islamic-sation' will impinge upon all our lives. For all these reasons, this forthcoming election will be one of the most keenly contested election in our history.

Malaysia practices the 'first past the post' (FPTP) electoral system in which the candidate in a constituency contest who wins a simple majority of votes is declared the winner. This system is relatively uncomplicated and allows for quick decisions with regard to establishing political representation along constituency lines.

Thus this explains why elected representatives are always referred to in parliament as the Member for Bukit Bendera, Bandar Kuching, PJ Selatan, etc.

However, this FPTP system has serious drawbacks given the way it is practised here in Malaysia.

Needs ignored

Firstly, the hitherto partisan approach adopted by all political parties, and especially the BN, towards supporters and non-supporters has seen elected representatives seeking to only represent the interests of their own supporters and not others.

This has often led to elected representatives ignoring the needs of non-supporters at best and at worst victimising them by denying them development projects and funds as in the case of poor rural constituencies.

This occurs at the micro-level since the current system of voting through saluran (streams) at each voting centre, involving at most a few hundred voters from a specific locality, allows the ruling government to identify with great accuracy the areas of electorate support and non-support, and to act accordingly towards them after the election.

The most dramatic example of this partisan approach at the macro-level is the arbitrary denial of oil royalties to Terengganu under PAS after the1999 election but similar royalties were not discontinued to Sarawak and Sabah simply because the BN retained control of those states.

A second drawback of the FPTP system here in Malaysia is that there is little accountability built into the system. Since many electoral candidates are selected by their respective party leaders (e g the BN chairperson selects BN candidates.) and bankrolled by corporate interests, there arises the question of whose interests elected representatives actually serve once they are elected.

Political theory and current rhetoric suggests that elected representatives should represent the interests of their constituents. But, in reality, past and current practice shows that they often first serve the interests of their political masters, their business interests second and third and lastly those of their constituents, if at all.

In other words, our current system of elections, while presuming to be representative, is not really so since it is undermined by the system of party candidate selection and corporate finance. Even members of the parliamentary opposition (e g the DAP and PAS) are prone to paying lip service to the idea of political representation and are more eager to bow to the demands of their party leadership than to representing the interests of their constituents.

Parliament dominated

A third drawback of the FPTP system as practised in Malaysia is its inability to fairly reflect voter choice and thus accurately represent the intentions and hopes of constituency voters. Specifically, the FPTP system presently does not reflect the choice and hopes of voters who support losing candidates to be articulated in parliament.

For example, in the 1999 parliamentary election, out of a total of 193 seats contested, the BN won 148 seats winning 56.53% of all votes cast while the combined opposition won 45 seats winning 43.47% of the total votes cast.

Yet, the BN's 148 seats actually represents 76.7% of the total seats in parliament while the 45 opposition seats only represents 23.3% of all parliamentary seats. This means despite winning a low majority of all votes cast, the BN still nonetheless dominates parliament.

This scenario is repeated at the state assembly level where BN garnered a total of 56.64% of all votes cast for all the state assemblies while the combined opposition garnered 43.36%. The unrepresentative nature of the FPTP system secured 281 seats contested at state level for the BN (representing 71.3% of all state assembly seats) while the opposition only got 113 seats (representing 28.7% of all state assembly seats). The table below summarises these results.

In other words, while the FPTP system claims to be efficient, it in fact denies the electorate the right of their ballot being fairly reflected in parliament. Had a fairer system of voting (e g a proportional election system) been used, the BN which garnered 56.5% of the vote would have only been allocated 109 parliamentary seats with the combined opposition receiving 84 parliamentary seats, thus better reflecting the 43.5% of votes it won.

Similarly, had the fairer proportional system been used, the BN would have only won 223 seats instead of 281 at the state levels while the opposition would have picked up 171 seats instead of only 113.

The major differences in terms of seats controlled in parliament as a result of the proportional system of elections will have many positive implications. Firstly, the BN will not be able to control parliament or even state governments so tightly.

With their overwhelming two-thirds majority, they have rammed through as well as maintained unpopular and even draconian legislation for nearly five decades. Secondly, parliament and its functions will be taken seriously by both citizens and legislators alike and not treated with public derision, as it is presently.

Gerrymandering boost

A proportional system of election will also provide for livelier parliamentary and state assembly sessions. With more equal representation from legislators from both sides of the political divide, legislators will be tested and held to account by their peers on the basis of hard work and intelligent arguments and research.

Parliament will then regain its real role of formulating good laws that genuinely represent the will of the people besides fulfilling its key role in holding the executive/government accountable.

The FPTP system in Malaysia is further skewed owing to the problem of gerrymandering. Under the FPTP system, the creation of equal sized constituencies is essential to ensure that each person's vote is worth just that, i e equal to another person's vote, not more and not less.

However, over the years, the gerrymandering of constituencies, given a pliable Election Commission, has ensured that there now exists an imbalance between states, between rural and urban electorates and between ethnic concentrations.

A key report by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) on the Malaysian electoral system found, for example, that the people of Selangor are under-represented in parliament. The state has 22% of the country's population but only a 17% share of parliament seats. Sabah and Sarawak on the other hand are overly represented.

This gives rise to the phenomenon that the value of votes in rural areas is sometimes worth about 3-4 times more than those in urban constituencies.

For example, the rural Batong Sadong constituency (1,164 sq.km.) in Sarawak has 17,855 voters while urban Sibu (1,398 sq.km.) has 54,384 voters. The Bumiputera-dominated state constituency of Satok (6 sq.km.) in Sarawak has 11,372 voters while the neighbouring Chinese-dominated state constituency of Padungan (7 sq.km.) has 25,784 voters.

In other words, the value of a vote is not equal between constituencies. This pattern is increasingly obvious throughout the country.

That said, elections in Malaysia have to date been generally free although this doesn't mean that they have been fair. That this is so is largely due to the BN government's deliberate abuse of public resources during election periods .

Little choice

Ethically, once parliament is dissolved, a government's mandate to govern ceases and it is duty-bound to only play a caretaker role in maintaining the peace and protecting the country until a new government is sworn into office by the Yang Di Pertuan Agong. Given our education system, this fact is little known. And our non-independent and weak Election Commission does not highlight this either.

The BN has consistently abused its caretaker role by utilising as much public resources as possible to advance its own sectarian interests. Thus, the phenomena of new policies being announced, roads being paved, projects being opened, licenses being awarded, land being given, public funds being distributed, scholarships being bestowed, etc. etc. by the BN government during election campaigns.

The incumbent BN government does this to portray itself as the only party capable of 'delivering development,' thus caricaturing the opposition as incompetent and unreliable. The opposition, whether for lack of funds or for the sake of principles, is generally unable to match such behaviour.

Consequently, marginalised and rural communities are often left with little choice but to re-elect the incumbent government not necessarily because they want to but because they are ensnared by electoral handouts.

Besides this, the impoverished state of the mainstream media in Malaysia has thus far not helped promote the dynamism and potential of general elections. Woefully putrid at the best of times, the Malaysian print and TV media metamorphoses during election periods into an all-pervasive publicity machine rivalling that of the Soviets during the 1960s and 70s.

Instead of explaining different party manifestos and specific electoral issues promoted by various contesting parties fairly, our media is more accustomed to spewing out little more than propaganda.

Once this begins, as it has in the past, there are sacred issues that are sacred. Even religious and ethnic issues have previously been deliberately played up in an inflammatory manner and for purely partisan political interests.

Rescue needed

Thus, not only is the opposition eclipsed in the BN-controlled media, but so too is truth and the democratic principle of fairplay. That this is so is due to the existence of authoritarian legislation which rigidly shackles the media as well as media ownership to corporate interests closely linked to major coalition parties within the BN.

Thus, today in Malaysia, instead of political parties and politicians prioritising cogent and well-thought out social, economic and political programmes as the basis of their electoral campaigns, many political parties (including those of the opposition) are prone to resorting to ethnic and religious rhetoric to fuel their campaigns.

Such tactics will only fuel ethnic and religious tensions instead of contributing towards the formation of a genuine Bangsa Malaysia based on justice, truth and peace.

Elections in Malaysia today have lost much of their real value. And yet, the fact that they are still being held is proof that the people of Malaysia insist upon elections and will not do without them.

Thus, there is every possibility that the Malaysian people, if they so choose, can rescue our electoral process from further deterioration. The choice really is in our hands and we have to bravely choose to look beyond our own short-term ethnic, religious and financial interests in favour of our beloved country's overall long-term multi-ethnic, multi-religious interests.

ANDREW AERIA is a member of Aliran, Malaysia's leading human rights organisation. This article first appeared in Catholic Asian News .