EC separates husband and wife, tribunal told

BERSIH TRIBUNAL A village in Segamat in Johor has been divided to the point that even a husband and wife registered to the same address would be voting in different constituencies, the Bersih People's Tribunal heard today.

Political scientist Wong Chin Huat (left) presented a slide to the spanel under the title 'One bed, two constituencies?' during his presentation on malapportionment and gerrymandering in Malaysia, lamenting that he could not find an appropriate academic term for the phenomena.

"If we were to believe that the Election Commission (EC) has done a fantastic job, we must conclude that the constituency boundaries cut across that house, and not only that house, it cuts across that room, and not only that room, it must cut across that bed.

"They must have privy information that Mr Ong sleeps on the side of Segamat, while his wife sleeps on the side of Sekinjang.

"You'd have plenty of stories like this, but this is the most interesting," he said.

Also testifying today was Ong Guan Sin, a resident of that house and the head of a group of polling agents and counting agents based in Segamat.

He presented a map to the panel that plots each voter of the village, Kampung Abdullah, to their registered address.

The map with over 3,000 red and blue dots reveal many instances of voters sharing the same address assigned to cast their ballots in different constituencies.

Of these, 1,838 vote in Segamat and 1,170 vote in Sekijang, with no clear border between the two groups.

Staunch opposition supporters

Ong said only one member of his household votes in Segamat while the others were moved to the then-new constituency of Sekinjang after the 2004 general election.

“The EC is so powerful that it can split husband and wife in that manner. I always pitied my brother and sister-in-law.

“Come polling day, they cannot hold hands and go to the same polling station to cast their votes. They have been split by force,” he said.

However, he only realised about a potential problem during the 13th general election where many villagers asked where is their polling centre, which prompted him and his volunteers to plot the Pollock-esque map of the village.

The 42-year-old IT consultant pointed out that Kampung Abdullah is a staunchly pro-opposition village and suggested that the purpose of the phenomena may be to dilute PKR support.

In the Kampung Abdullah Utara polling district, which he said has a geographical area that most closely encompasses the Kampung Abdullah area, PKR had garnered 86.5 percent of the 1,838 votes, compared to BN’s 13.5 percent.

Assuming that the level of PKR support is the same throughout the village, this means that there could have been 1,012 PKR votes that have been lost to Sekijang where it could not have an impact, he said.

Additionally, he said there were at least 1,224 voters in other districts that have been transferred from Segamat to Sekijang, but he does not know the level of PKR support there.

However, given that BN’s Dr S Subramaniam had won Segamat with a 1,217-vote majority over PKR’s Chua Jui Meng, he said the majority could have been much slimmer, if not a PKR victory.

Meanwhile, Wong said this phenomena is not strictly gerrymandering, but “incorporates the core spirit of gerrymandering.”

“The idea of gerrymandering is to disregard the substantial social conditions that inform the proper definitions of a political community.

“In this case, even the exact geographical location is disregarded,” he said.