Increasing the number of parliamentary and state assembly seats by the Election Commission in its current re-delineation exercise, which is expected to come soon, will go against the people's interests, says the coalition for electoral reform, Bersih.

"There are huge ramifications to this, from facilitating more gerrymandering and malapportionment to undermining parliamentary efficiency and further burdening the national budget in terms of salaries and other perks for elected representatives.

"Each time the seats increase, it is actually the BN that will get the landslide victory. We do not want that political agenda to happen again this time, " Bersih chairperson Maria Chin Abdullah told a press conference in Petaling Jaya today.

The last electoral boundary re-delineation excise was carried out in 2003. According to the constitutional requirement, the next exercise can only be done eight years after the previous one - meaning the re-delineation has been due since 2011.

Maria also dismissed the perception of "the more MPs, the more representation", saying that it would only further limit the debate time for each parliamentarian, who currently has less than three hours to speak in the parliament.  
 
"The Election Commission said, if increase (seats), we would prolong the parliament session. But in one year, we only have twelve months and the MPs also need to connect with the community.
 
"Compare to India, which has a much bigger population - for the past three decades, their (number of) parliamentarians have not increased. The same with US and other countries,” Maria added. 
 
She urged the EC and political parties to state their positions on gerrymandering, malapportionment and seat increase. 
 
In the meantime, the election watchdog also criticised the EC for reducing the redelineation "guessing game", causing great inconvenience to the people.
 
Bersih thus demands that the EC disclose more details about the redelineation, such as when will it be, the timeframe for the entire process and whether it will observe the public consultation.
 
On an unrelated note, the Bersih president stated that the coalition will join the 'Walk for Peace and Freedom 2014' by the lawyers who will march against the Sedition Act on Oct 16.