MP SPEAKS News report earlier this week said former Election Commission (EC) chairperson Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman was joining Perkasa in order to use his vast experience to protect Malay political power.

Rashid is also quoted as saying that the three constituency re-delineation exercises that were conducted while he was in the EC were done to protect Malay political power.

This is patently false and it can be easily demonstrated using the 2003 delineation exercise, where the priority was to increase BN/Umno dominance, rather than maintain Malay political dominance.

NONE If Rashid wanted to maintain Malay political dominance, why was it that no parliamentary seats were added to the Malay majority states of Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu in the 2003 delineation exercise?

Seats were not added in these states despite the fact that the number of voters in some seats were already quite high.

Among these parliamentary seats are Tumpat with 69,948 voters, Kuala Terengganu with 65,900 voters, Kuala Kedah with 73,942 voters and Baling with 72,387 voters. All of these are Malay majority seats.

In contrast, seats were added in places with far fewer voters, such as Sungai Besar in Selangor, which then had only 30,361 voters.

Reason: The fear of PAS winning

The reason for the non-addition of parliamentary seats in the states of Kelantan, Terengganu and Kedah is simple: PAS had performed tremendously well in these states in the 1999 general election, winning eight out of 15 parliament seats in Kedah, 13 out of 14 seats in Kelantan and all eight seats in Terengganu.

The BN was fearful that if more seats were added in these states, it would benefit the opposition, specifically PAS.

If Rashid really wanted to increase Malay political dominance, he would have added more parliament seats in Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu in 2003 but he did not do so in order to protect BN/Umno's political interest.

Similarly, if he had wanted to increase Malay political dominance, he would have added another parliamentary seat in the Gombak area as well as in the Kapar area.

The Gombak Parliament seat, which then was 75 percent Malay, already had 88,751 voters in 2003.

The Kapar Parliament seat, which was 57 percent Malay, already had 99,563 voters. New Malay majority constituencies could have been created in both areas. Why was this not done? Again, it was because of political motives.

The BN only won 50.1 percent of the popular vote in Gombak and won this seat with an 803-vote majority.

Rashid admitted he acted on instructions

The BN won only 49.7 percent of the popular vote in Kapar in a three-cornered fight. Adding seats in these areas could mean creating seats that could be more easily won by the opposition.

I was part of an Institute Kajian Malaysia dan Antarabangsa (IKMAS ) study team from UKM looking at the constituency delineation process and I remember distinctly Rashid telling the members of the study team that he had received instructions from then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad not to add any seats in the three northern states and also to create more ethnically ‘mixed' seats.

The presumption then was that non-Malays would not vote for the opposition, namely PAS, and having more non-Malay voters in these seats would help the BN.

I also remember distinctly Rashid ‘boasting' about the creation of the Cameron Highlands constituency, a mixed seat with 36 percent Malay, 33 percent Chinese, 17 percent Indian and 14 percent Orang Asli voters. Presumably, he thought that such a mixed seat could not possibly be won by the opposition.

Rashid was clearly taking instructions from his political masters in the BN during the 2003 constituency delineation exercise.

The exercise was done in order to increase the political dominance of BN/Umno and not to increase Malay political dominance per se.

This only further emphasises the need to have a truly independent Election Commission to conduct the next delineation exercise and for the creation of a parliamentary select committee on the delineation exercise.

DR ONG KIAN MING is the MP for Serdang.