The Election Commission's redelineation report was on Wednesday passed by Parliament with 129 votes to 80, and gazetted within 24 hours, bringing the new electoral boundaries for the 14th general election into effect.

However, unlike many developed democracies, the voting record is not immediately available, making it difficult for the public to know who voted and how they did so.

For the Dewan Rakyat, the voting record was previously made available through documents distributed to the respective MPs after the entire session is over. However, MPs have complained that this practice was stopped since 2015.

In the interest of public accountability, Malaysiakini pored through footage of the bloc voting on Wednesday to see who did or did not attend the vote. The information gathered was further verified with a number of MPs who were there at the time.

Malaysiakini also reached out to MPs who were absent or their associates to explain why they were missing from the House during the vote.

The vote was largely passed along partisan lines, with 128 BN MPs and one independent voting in favour of the redelineation report.

The independent representative who voted in favour was Bandar Tun Razak MP Abdul Khalid Ibrahim, according to several MPs, including those who voted within the same bloc as the former Selangor menteri besar, who was previously from PKR.

Bloc voting is a system where the Dewan Rakyat is divided into multiple groups according to the seating and its members will then inform the bloc leader on how they wish to vote.

The bloc leader will then submit the results for the bloc to the parliamentary secretary.

Those who voted against the redelineation report comprised 31 MPs from DAP, 26 from PKR, 11 from PAS, seven from Parti Amanah Negara, two from Parti Warisan Sabah, one from Bersatu, one from PSM and one independent.

The independent who voted with the opposition was Kota Melaka MP Sim Tong Him, who quit DAP last year.

Reasons for not voting

A total of nine opposition MPs did not vote on the motion to approve the redelineation report.

DAP's Nga Kor Ming (Taiping), Ngeh Koo Ham (Beruas) and V Sivakumar (Batu Gajah) were not able to attend as they were suspended on Monday for criticising Dewan Rakyat speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia and refusing to apologise for it.

Meanwhile, DAP's Ariff Sabri Abdul Aziz (Raub) suffered a stroke in May last year and had been out of the public eye since.

Another DAP MP Lim Kit Siang (Gelang Patah) voted, but parliamentary officials refused to recognise his vote after he was booted out of the House by Pandikar hours earlier.

Absent from PKR during the vote were Mohamed Azmin Ali (Gombak) and Fauzi Abdul Rahman (Indera Mahkota) who were both present earlier in the day. Azmin was one of the opposition speakers in the debate on the redelineation report.

Asked for an explanation, PKR parliamentary whip Johari Abdul told Malaysiakini that Azmin, who is Selangor menteri besar, had to leave to attend the state assembly which was sitting at the same time. Azmin is also the Bukit Antarabangsa assemblyperson.

Fauzi, when contacted, said he left before the vote in protest of the limited time allocated for MPs to debate the redelineation report, which he described as a very important matter.

Fauzi said when he was deputy minister in the Prime Minister's Department, he was briefed by the EC that constituencies can only have a variance of up to around 50,000 voters but this was not followed in the latest redelineation report.

"I wanted to speak on this, on my experience, but I was not given a chance. Why should I vote?

"I did not vote (not) in protest of my party but because of the manner (in which) the speaker entertained MPs who wanted to speak on behalf of the people," Fauzi told Malaysiakini.

Hadi had ‘important appointment’

Meanwhile, two MPs from PAS who were absent during the vote were Abdul Hadi Awang (Marang) and Nasrudin Hassan (Temerloh).

When contacted, PAS secretary-general Takiyuddin Hassan told Malaysiakini that Nasruddin was on medical leave.

As for Hadi, Takiyuddin said the PAS president did attend the session earlier in the day but had to leave due to an important appointment.

All other opposition parties had recorded full attendance of their MPs.

BN too had almost full attendance, with only two MPs absent, namely G Palanivel (Cameron Highlands) and Joseph Pairin Kitingan (Keningau), who is also Sabah deputy chief minister.

BN Backbenchers Council deputy chairperson Bung Moktar Radin confirmed to Malaysiakini that the duo was absent during the vote.

It is unclear why Kittingan was absent but Palanivel had not participated in parliamentary debates and voting since being ousted as MIC president and subsequently dropped as a minister in 2014.

Meanwhile, two other BN MPs had passed away and were not replaced in a by-election, as three years had passed since the last general election.

They were Zainudin Ismail (Jelebu) and Abdul Manan Ismail (Paya Besar).

The attendance during the redelineation report bloc voting is summarised in the tables below.

 

See the table on Infogram.

Additional reporting by NIGEL AW.

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