Admit it, BN won because of gerrymandering

comments     Yoursay     Published     Updated

YOURSAY ‘Ismail Sabri's statement confirms gerrymandering is an Umno strategy.’

 

Ismail Sabri accuses Dr M of gerrymandering

                     

Commentable: We have Agriculture Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob admitting that his party is directly involved in gerrymandering. His public statement also implicates the Election Commission (EC) as an accomplice too.

 

But of course this man will be ever ready to twist his words and claim that he has been misquoted and the issue was blown out of proportion. 

 

Swipenter: I think what Sabri is saying was that former PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad turned many PAS and/or PKR safe seats into mixed-race seats. That must be Mahathir's strategy, knowing him.                                    

Prove me wrong by listing out all the Malay-majority seats that were turned into mixed-race seats by Mahathir after the 1999 election.

 

Kim Quek: When BN suffered unprecedented loss of Malay votes and equally unprecedented gain of Chinese votes in the 1999 election following the sacking of then deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, the EC skewed the electoral rolls to maximise the creation of racially-mixed seats.                                             

 

Now, after BN suffering massive swing of Chinese votes to Pakatan Rakyat in the past two elections, EC is skewing the electoral rolls in the opposite direction - maximising the creation of Malay-dominated seats. 

 

This is done through a two-prong strategy of reshuffling the racial composition of individual constituencies (since the total number of parliamentary seats can’t be increased without two-third parliamentary majority), and maximising the registration of only Malays as new voters.

 

The latter strategy was proven by Bersih when it revealed statistics to show that new voters registered in the peninsula are overwhelmingly Malays.

 

It gave the examples of Perak and Negeri Sembilan, where the racial ratios were 8 to 1 and 10 to 1 respectively, despite these being 5 to 4 and 5 to 3 respectively in the GE13 electoral rolls.

 

Such racial discrimination is achieved through a new EC policy post-GE13, whereby only Umno-linked bodies are assisting the voter registration, while Pakatan-linked or non-political NGOs are barred from doing so.

 

Such unconstitutional and illegal practice by EC must be put to a stop immediately, failing which, the outcome of the coming GE14 election will be a foregone conclusion.

Vijay47: When it comes to abysmal lack of intelligence and excellence in indisputably establishing a penchant for revealing himself to be an utter moron, Ismail Sabri's fame is legendary, and that is no mean achievement considering the challenge posed by similarly deprived colleagues in Umno.

 

We now have him proudly, smugly, crowing to the whole world that the delineation of electoral constituencies is decided not by the EC, a body answerable to the Agong himself, but by Mahathir and friends.

 

I wonder what the EC chairman, he of great concern for the image and integrity of his commission, has to say.

 

Perhaps he could get his twit of an ally, the inspector-general of police (IGP), to institute proceedings against Ismail Sabri for bringing the EC's independence and honour into disrepute.

 

Yeah, I know, travelling above the clouds occasionally does strange things to my brains.  By the way, Ismail Sabri, does your recent revelation show Mahathir to be as stubborn as Chinese traders?

 

Fairnsquare: Ismail Sabri's statement confirms that gerrymandering is an Umno strategy, irrespective of who the leader was at that time.

 

All rakyat must take heed that unfair practises are being used to stay in power.

 

Odysseus: Ismail Sabri is really brilliant. In one stroke, he exposed that EC is not independent and under the instruction of the prime minister. Terima kasih. We need more ministers like you.

 

Tok Karut: Ismail Sabri should be quoted in any case challenging EC delineation aka gerrymandering.

 

Leonie: There are two conclusions to draw here:

 

Firstly, Mahathir foresaw rightly that the Malay vote was split and secondly, the EC will work with the incumbents to gerrymander whichever way is beneficial.

 

After jailing Anwar, the next biggest threat to Najib is Mahathir.

 

EyesRolling: No shame, a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

 

Gordon Gecko: Wow! Tit for tat. Let us all enjoy the title fight:

 

1) May 2, 2015, Las Vegas: Manny Pacquiao vs Floyd Mayweather

 

2) April 2015 till Najib's resignation, Putrajaya: ‘Manny’ Najib vs Dr ‘Floyd’ Mahathir.

Both are billed as the Fight of the Century. The best thing, the latter is free. There is no need to subscribe to Astro’s pay per view.


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