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Pua livid over EC proposal despite possibility of increasing majority
Published:  Sep 15, 2016 11:47 AM
Updated: 6:21 AM

Petaling Jaya Utara MP Tony Pua is livid over the Election Commission's redelineation proposal, despite the move giving him a chance of winning at an even bigger majority.

The EC's proposal will see Pua's seat renamed as Damansara, with the number of voters increasing by 76.2 percent from 85,401 in 2013, to 150,439, making it the largest parliamentary constituency.

Pua predicts this would could increase his majority from 44,672 to 61,872 votes.

This he said would be a result of moving 54,902 voters from the Bukit Lanjan state assembly seat, which is previously part of the Subang parliamentary seat.

"There is only one reason that one can deduce from the EC’s actions. It is to add to the majorities in the seats BN is deemed unlikely to win, while reducing the majorities for seats where BN sees the opportunity to re-capture.

"By shifting Bukit Lanjan to Damansara, the EC has made Subang a much more winnable seat for BN," Pua said in a media statement today.

Another example of the redelineation working in favour of BN, he said, was in Kapar where the state seats with the largest majority, Sg Pinang, will be shifted to the Klang parliamentary seat.

"In doing so, Kapar, which is currently held by G Manivanan of PKR, becomes much more vulnerable.

"Its (Kapar's) 2013 winning majority of 23,790 is approximately halved as a result of the proposed redelineation."

This, he added, makes the current constituency redelineation exercise the biggest proposed gerrymandering exercise in Malaysia's history.

In the 'first past the post' electoral system practised in Malaysia, whether a candidate wins with one vote or 100,000 votes makes no difference, other than to show how popular the candidate is.

Just 47pct of the popular vote got BN in

This can be seen in the 2013 general election results, in which BN only received 47.38 percent of the popular vote, but won 133 parliamentary seats compared with the opposition, which won 50.87 percent of the popular vote but obtained only 88 seats.

Pua further pooh-poohed the redelineation due to the discrepancy in the average numbers of voters in different constituencies.

In Selangor, he said, the average should be around 94,500 but some seats, the smallest being Sabak Bernam, only has 37,126 voters.

This, he said, is just 24.7 percent the number of voters in the proposed Damansara seat.

Pua has urged the people to protest the redelineation proposal.

Objections to the EC's proposal can be made within one month from now.

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