In the wake of the just-concluded state elections in Sarawak, it's obvious that there is a need for serious electoral law reform in Malaysia.

In fact, the miserable two seats won by the opposition appears almost like a well-planned 'gift' from the ruling Barisan Nasional to prevent a 100 percent sweep which would have aroused suspicion in the minds of the public that the election was 'rigged'.

For starters, the formation of coalitions before elections should be banned by law. The ruling Barisan Nasional coalition concept tacitly endorses elite power-sharing and thereby denies the grassroots majority meaningful participation in the democratic process.

There is also a need to scrap the "first past the post" system in order to ensure that all voters are represented in Parliament and the respective state assemblies. Democracy in its truest sense means the right to be heard. The thousands of voters who have just voted for the opposition parties in the Sarawak polls will not have even a single representative in the state assembly. Whither democracy when such a large number of people are virtually disenfranchised!

Thirdly, delineation of constituencies, both parliamentary and state, should have the support of at least a simple majority of the elected opposition members as well before being passed into law.

The current practice of allowing the ruling party to approve such delineation on its own, provided it has a two-thirds majority in parliament and the respective state assemblies, merely encourages gerrymandering.

In short, opposition voters could be re-distributed during delineation exercises to cap the number of seats which can be won by the opposition. Also, opposition areas, no matter how huge, could be represented by just a tiny number of seats while the areas under ruling party control could be represented by as many seats as possible.