Many of us are familiar with the Malaysian electoral system of first past the post. We have had this system since independence and it’s seems to be stuck with us for life. It is about time to re-evaluate the electoral system for what it is worth. Many critics have viewed this system as anti-democratic and produces distorted results.

What is the First Past The Post system?

Under the First Past The Post (FPTP), voting takes place in single-member constituencies. Voters put a cross in a box next to their chosen candidate and the candidate with the most votes in the constituency wins. This system works on the basic concept of ‘winner takes all’, where each constituency is represented by only one elected member/representative.

Many laud the FPTP for it has delivered a two-party system in the UK and pre-1996 New Zealand and hence voters are assured of a single-party government with a strong opposition as the check and balance. And because they need to win more than half of the population support, theoretically they need to be moderate to win the middle ground.

What’s wrong with FPTP?

Anti-democratic

Democracy as we understand it is meant to represent the will of the people and of course this goes beyond the five year ballot box. Here the electoral system becomes very important. The FPTP follows the will of only some people, the best organised amongst them, and often not most of the people. It follows the concept of ‘winner takes all’ and whoever has the most votes is declared the elected representative of the constituency.

All other voters in the constituency are not represented, and nationally, many groups may be under-represented or not represented at all in Parliament. In the worst scenario, the majority with popular vote may even be denied their power.

Winner takes all, therefore, explains the GE13 results when BN secured 5,237,699 votes (47%) and won 133 seats (60%) as compared to the opposition which garnered 5,623,984 votes (51%), but only won 89 parliamentary seats (40%).

Encouraging extremism

While FPTP is credited for promoting moderation in many countries, including Malaysia in the past (by some observers), the table can be turned around to reward extremism, especially when redelineation is partisan and unprofessional. After all, if winning can be done without being inclusive, why hold back winners from taking all?

As a result of gerrymandering and malapportionment, Umno and the BN’s second largest component party Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) together won 46% of parliamentary seats with only 32% of votes,. They are only 10 seats from a simple majority. This implies a swing by a few more percentage points can deliver a simple majority to a minority block supported by one-third of voters.

Ever wonder why Umno has been whipping up further ethno-religious sentiments after GE13, to the extent of even praising the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIS) war criminals?   

Encouraging gerrymandering and other frauds

 

One may even blame the system for its vulnerability for systemic rigging and manipulation especially gerrymandering and voter transfer. Because votes are aggregated not at the national or state level, but at the constituency level, it gives incentives for parties to alter the composition of voters.

Through gerrymandering the number of marginal constituencies can be reduced and within it the size of the margin can be further decreased. If this does not work, there is also the transfer of voters in or out of constituencies in order to alter the composition or even the size of the electorate.

If this still does not work, one can then resort to vote buying or even vote rigging. For example, if the real margin in a constituency is 1,000 votes, one can change the outcome by either deploying 1,001 phantom voters, having 1,001 spoilt votes cast for the winner or buying 501 votes.

For FPTP to work even just theoretically, we must first have gentlemen and gentlewomen as players and referees. It simply cannot work well in a country like Malaysia where crooks so often fill up public offices.

Privileging  marginal seats

Since FPTP is about winning half the voters plus one, a candidate will need to target the voters who will give her or him the minimal votes to win. S/he can do so by resorting to offering of election goodies, vote buying or intense media messages to target the pivotal voters.

At the national level, this means marginal constituencies will get much more attentions and resources compared to stronghold constituencies. In stronghold constituencies, the presumed winners see no need to seriously woo the voters while the presumed losers see no benefit.

We can see this clearly in by-elections. When the constituencies can potentially become marginal, then election goodies come flooding in to the extent some in marginalised constituencies may not want to wish their representatives good health!

FPTP is incompatible with coalition parties

FPTP as practiced in the United Kingdom and other countries have all parties contesting in all constituencies. Coalitions, if any, are not permanent and in most cases they are formed after elections, e.g., the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition was formed after the 2012 elections.

This does allow for intra-party democracy in the sense that party are able to contest in any, if not all seats and, within the party, it also allows for bottom-up selection of candidates.

In Malaysia, we have been stuck with political parties within a coalition and the rule of the thumb is that they cannot compete with each other. Any bottom-up selection of candidates is by default impossible. Intra-coalition and intra-party competition are also not possible.

Because internal competition is impossible, without some form of coalition primary, it often results in selection of unpopular candidates and/or sabotaging by candidates from the same camp, as we saw in Kota Damansara and Semenyih.

 

There have been discussions on exploring the merits of proportional representation (PR) as an alternative to FPTP. While proportional representation will tackle safe seats, diffuses concentration of power in one party coalition, and allows for broader representation, there are many variations of PR to choose from.

Hence, the conversation has to start now and not be left in the hands of the Election Commission or the government as they may not want to change the FPTP system at all. The people must demonstrate their political will if they want to change the electoral system.

MARIA CHIN ABDULLAH is the chairperson for the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections 2.0 ( Bersih 2.0 ) and the executive director of Empower . She believes politicians are bad masters if not made good servants through free, fair and competitive elections