COMMENT | Last week, Bersih made a call for Harapan-led states to modify their electoral systems to introduce “Non-Constituency Seats” (NCS) in their respective state assemblies.

The goal of NCS is to produce a legislative assembly that is more representative of the political orientation of the electorate as a whole, as compared to the current first-past-the-post (FPTP) system.

I have written on this before, but let’s do a quick recap by way of example in a FPTP system.

Let’s say Party A and Party B are contesting 50 assembly seats. If Party A won 51 percent of the vote in all 50 assembly seats, they would have 50 seats in the assembly (100 percent), while Party B, who won 49 percent of the vote in all seats, would have zero seats in the assembly (0 percent).

Under the NCS modification which I believe Bersih and others are proposing, the following would instead happen.

Party A will still have the 50 seats they won. The assembly, however, will add another 50 seats to the legislature, resulting in a total of 100 seats. Of these additional seats, 49 will be given to Party B, while one will be given to Party A.

Thus, the final composition of the assembly would be 51 seats for Party A, and 49 seats for Party B, thus reflecting the breakdown of support in the electorate as a whole, which was 51 percent for Party A and 49 percent for Party B, as opposed to 100 and zero respectively under FPTP.

Make every vote count

I am strongly in favour of reforms that make our legislatures more representative, and more reflective of the political realities and aspirations we face today.

The NCS proposal is but one of many possible ways forward, but there is little doubt to me that it would be a step forward, as opposed to a step in any other direction...