It was reported earlier this week that former Election Commission (EC) chairman, Tan Sri Abdul Rashid, was joining Perkasa in order to use his vast experience to protect Malay political power. It was also reported that the three delineation exercises which were conducted while he was in the EC was 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 maintaining Malay political dominance.
If Tan Sri Abdul 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 e.g. Tumpat with 69948 voters, Kuala Terengganu with 65900 voters, Kuala Kedah with 73942 voters and Baling with 72387 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 with only 30361 voters.
The reason for the non-addition of parliament seats in these three states is simple. PAS had performed tremendously well in the 1999 general elections in all three states winning 8 out of 15 parliament seats in Kedah, 13 out of 14 seats in Kelantan and all 8 seats in Terengganu. The BN was fearful that if more seats were added in these states, it would benefit the opposition, specifically PAS. If Tan Sri Abdul 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 parliament seat in the Gombak area as well as in the Kapar area. The Gombak parliament seat, which was 75% Malay, already had 88751 voters in 2003. The Kapar parliament seat, which was 57% Malay, already had 99563 voters. New Malay majority constituency could have been added in both areas. Why was this not done? Again, because of political motives. The BN only won 50.1% of the popular vote in Gombak and won this seat with an 803 vote majority. The BN won only 49.7% of the popular vote in Kapar in a 3 corner fight. Adding seats in these areas could mean creating seats that could be more easily won by the opposition.
I was part of a an IKMAS (Institute Kajian Malaysia dan Antarabangsa) study team from UKM looking at the delineation process and I remember distinctly Tan Sri Abdul Rashid telling the members of the study team that he had received instructions from then Prime Minister Mahathir not to add any seats in the 3 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 Tan Sri Abdul Rashid ‘boasting’ about the creation of Cameron Highlands, a mixed seat with 36% Malay, 33% Chinese, 17% Indian and 14% Orang Asli voters. Presumably, he thought that such a mixed seat could not possibly be won by the opposition.
Tan Sri Abdul Rashid was clearly taking instructions from this political masters in the BN during the 2003 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 emphasizes the need to have a truly independent EC to conduct the next delineation exercise and for the creation of a Parliamentary Select Committee on the delineation exercise.