The Election Commission (EC) should stop cheating the people of Perak for the sole motive of retaining Barisan Nasional in power, and to cease all redelineation exercises in the state to pave way for a thorough revisit, review and restudy of the election boundaries in the State in line with the spirit of the Federal Constitution.
I have, in my capacity as the State Assemblyman of Canning and a voter of Ipoh Timur, together with Ng Swee Teck (a Tambun voter) and Mohd Ali Hussain (a Gopeng voter), with the assistance from Bersih 2.0 and through Mr. John Fam Sin Nin of Messrs S N Fam & Co., filed a suit in Ipoh High Court against the redelineation exercise in Perak by the EC, naming the Election Commission as the First Respondent, its Chairman Datuk Seri Mohd Hashim BinAbdullah as the Second Respondent and Datuk Haji Abdul Ghani Bin Salleh as the Third Respondent. We are also representing Pakatan Harapan Perak in this suit.
We have prayed for, among others, a declaration that the Proposed Recommendations for Federal and State Constituencies for Perak as reviewed by the Election Commission in 2017 dated 08.03.2017 (“the said Proposed Recommendations”) is unconstitutional, a certiorari order to quash the said Proposed Recommendations, a mandamus for the EC to publish a new recommendations which is in line with the provisions of the Federal Constitution, and a stay of all proceedings for the said Proposed Recommendations.
The EC has seriously breached the principles and provisions as enunciated in the Federal Constitution in its redelineation exercise. Section 2(c) of the Thirteen Schedule of the Federal Constitutions states, as follows:-
“The number of electors within each constituency in a State ought to be approximately equal except that, having regard to the greater difficulty of reaching electors in the country districts and the other disadvantages facing rural constituencies, a measure of weightage for are ought to be given to such constituencies.”
The Parliamentary Constituencies of Ipoh Timur (89,218 voters), Tambun (96,437 voters) and Gopeng (89,389 voters) are the constituencies having the most numbers of electors in Perak after the redelineation. The ratio of electors in Ipoh Timur, Tambun and Gopeng are 3.18, 3.44 and 3.18 respectively compared with the smallest parliamentary constituency in Perak, i.e. Lenggong, which is unaffected in the current redelineation exercise with 28,078 voters. No school of thought other than the magic by the EC will be able to justify this as falling within the ambit of “the number of electors for each constituency ought to be approximately equal”.
A further study of the Perak electoral roll also reveals that a total number of 56,323 voters in Perak do not carry proper address particulars, and all these voters form part of the electoral roll for 2015 which was used by the EC in their redelineation exercise. This is utterly ridiculous and shocking. Where are all these voters from? How could they be ascertained and placed into their respective constituencies without proper addresses? This is another magic trick by the EC!
In the past 6 months, Pakatan Harapan Perak had exposed at least 243 phantom voters, many of whom who are closely associated with MCA, in Kampar, Kamunting and Pokok Assam. There are another 436 phantom voters (closely related to MIC) who were also exposedin Hutan Melintang, a state seat under the parliamentary seat of Bagan Datuk currently held by the DPM Dato Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. This is blatant cheating but the EC had chosen to be extremely quiet about these cases. Is the EC condoning such acts or is the EC part of the ‘black hands’ behind this wrongdoing?
Despite the Court Orders staying the redelineation proceedings in Selangor and Malacca granted by the Kuala Lumpur High Court and Malacca High Court on 16.12.2017 and 03.05.2017 respectively, the EC had chosen to ignore the clear provisions of Article 113(6) of the Federal Constitution requiring the redelineation process of “the States of Malaya” as one single body, and proceeded with the redelineation proceedings in other states of Malaya. The EC’s motive in pushing for the redelineation exercise to be completed and tabled in Parliament this July at all cost – in order to save a dying regime – is too apparent.
There is no respect of law by the EC. The EC is now as good as the 14th component party of Barisan Nasional. This is why we have opted to file this suit to restore the rule of law of the nation. EC Chairman Datuk Seri Mohd Hashim should repent before it is too late.