E=mc2; Apa maksud 'Gerrymandering'? Sokongan Melayu/Islam?

Di Semenanjung, PR menang undi popular sebanyak 53.3% tetapi memenangi kerusi hanya sebanyak 81. BN plak menang undi popular sebanyak 45.7% tetapi memenangi kerusi sebanyak 86. Inilah dipanggil ‘gerrymandering’ atau perwakilan kerusi tak sekata atau ‘first past the post’ FPTP. Lebih kurang samalah tu..

Kenapa terjadi demikian? Sistem pilihanraya FPTP di perkenalkan oleh British dahulu mempunyai tujuan yang murni. Misalnya, penduduk pendalaman Rawang/Sg Buloh (satu ketika dahulu) dapat mengundi (i.e mempunyai perwakilan) sama seperti penduduk Shah Alam yang lebih maju. Tujuan nya kedua-dua perwakilan boleh bersuara di Parlimen. Syaratnya, perbezaan jumlah populasi antara dua kawasan populasi terbesar dan kawasan populasi terkecil tidak boleh melebihi 20%. Misalnya, kalau kawasan Rawang/Sg Buluh contohnya mempunyai populasi 100,000, populasi di Shah Alam tidak boleh melebihi 120,000. Jika lebih, ia perlu diubah sempadannya supaya populasi (pengundi) Shah Alam kurang dari 120,000. Lebih kurang macam itulah.

Apa yang terjadi sekarang pada PRU13, pengundi di Putrajaya ada 26,000, Igan (18,000) and Lubok Antu (19,000) berbanding Kapar (144,000), Serdang (133,000) dan Gombak (123,000). Perbezaan jumlah populasi pengundi terlalu lebar.

Kenapa? Kali terakhir sempadan di ubah adalah sebelum PR11 iaitu sebelum 2004. Waktu tu (sebelum PRU12) BN menang besar, iaitu menang majoriti 2/3. Jadi, ikut suka depalah apa depa nak buat. Selepas PRU12 (2008), barulah BN tidak menang majoriti 2/3, jadi pada tahun ini, BN (baca SPR) tidak boleh menambah kerusi atau mengurang kerusi sesuka hati tanpa persetujuan PR.

(Perlembagaan Malaysia memperuntukkan persempadan dijalankan selepas 8 tahun, iaitu pada tahun ini). Tetapi, mereka (SPR) boleh membuat persempadan semula mengikut citarasa depa jugalah tanpa persetujuan PR. Maknanya, Kapar boleh jadi populasi pengundi 150,000 sementara Baling 50,000 (tanpa penambahan 222 kerusi – Baling (93,000 PRU13). Kalau depa buat begitu, nampak sangatlah depa ‘gila kuasa’ jadi PRU14 nanti sama-sama kita jadikan 90% tsunami melayu. Habis cerita..cara tu saja nak ajar puak ‘gila kuasa’ ni..

Mengikut Artikel di Malaysiakini di bawah, 56% dari pengundi Melayu/Islam menyokong PR pada PRU13 ni. Apa maknanya? Maknanya, minoriti sahaja yg menyokong BN. Kita dah tahu, majoriti Cina dan bangsa lain menyokong PR lebih dari bangsa Melayu. Jadi, ‘maruah’ apa lagi nak di’sorok’ oleh UMNO/BN?

Kerajaan apa nak di namakan itu? Menang kerusi 133 (dari jumlah kerusi parlimen 222) tetapi kalah undi popular (47.38% sahaja).

DAP hanya bertanding 51 kerusi, bolehkah memerintah Malaysia? Menang plak di kawasan populasi pengundi besar. Menang PRU kali ini 38 kerusi dari 51 di kira sudah cukup hebat bagi DAP (selepas UMNO) tetapi sangat kurang jika dibandingkan dengan UMNO yg memenangi 88 kerusi (tetapi cuma 46% melayu/islam sahaja yang menyokong, kalau mengikut artikel di bawah).

Apa maknanya ini? Maknanya, kalau hanya minoriti melayu/islam yg menyokong umno di kawasan populasi kecil (banyak di luar bandar yg menjelaskan kerusi bertambah tetapi undi merosot), maka satu hari nanti, bolehkah undi popular BN/UMNO hanya menjadi 30-40 % tetapi masih boleh memerintah Malaysia iaitu kerajaan minority seperti sekarang?

Nampak tak kenapa PR sebenarnya sudah boleh memerintah Malaysia jika tiada gerrymandering dan penipuan di 27 kerusi.

89 kerusi + 27 kerusi + tiada gerrymandering + undi pos/awal = PR boleh memerintah Malaysia selepas PRU13 lalu.

Nota (correction): sorry, silap skit la 'formula' aku ni

Apa yg aku bleh simpulkan, walaupun kerusi Umno bertambah dari 79 (PRU12) kepada 88 (PRU13), tidak bermakna undi melayu/islam bertambah jika dibandingkan undi melayu/islam pd PRU12, kerana kemenangan umno banyak bergantung kepada kawasan luar bandar (populasi yg kurang) dan undi bukan islam/melayu yg merosot dgn banyaknya kepada UMNO di kawasan lain (mixed dan urban-area). Manakala undi Cina kepada PAS bertambah, kecuali mungkin tidak berlaku di N.Sembilan.

So, pencapaian UMNO, walaupun tertinggi sekali pada PRU13 dan berupaya menawan Kedah semula, tidak dapat diterjemahkan lebih baik dari PRU12 lalu. Saya berpandukan kepada Analisa Pasca Pilihanraya PRU12 yang dibuat oleh Universiti Malaya.

Oleh itu. pada PRU14 nanti, tumpuan UMNO/BN sepatutnya lebih kepada mixed area, sementara tumpuan PAS/PR sepatutnya pada kawasan luar-bandar. PAS mempunyai tanggungjawab yg berat berbanding UMNO di kawasan tersebut di sebabkan masalah logistik/komunikasi, tetapi UMNO lebih bermasalah untuk meyakinkan pengundi melayu/islam di kawasan bercampur.

Oleh itu, aku mengharapkan pengundi melayu, tak kisah di kawasan mana anda berada, menyokong hanya yg boleh diharap membela kaum Islam/Melayu, kerana pola pengundian selepas PRU13 sudah berubah. Tidak seperti sebelumnya.

Lupakan saja ‘unity government’ kerana unity government tidak bermakna rasuah dapat dibenteras ke akar umbi. Tidak bermakna demokrasi sekarang akan lebih baik. Silap-silap, rakyat akan lebih ‘di tekan ke bawah’.

Melayu mesti berani berubah, seperti orang Cina/DAP membuat sebarang perubahan. Jika tiada perubahan, maka kaum Melayu akan menjadi apa yg kita ada sekarang, tak berubah. ‘Nampak saja berubah’ tetapi tiada impak (ekonomi pun corot, tanah hilang kepada ‘orang lain’). Arah mana mahu berubah, tak kisah,asalkan mahu berubah ke arah perubahan sebenar.

Aku sekiranya nampak UMNO berubah, maka aku sebagai rakyat akan menyokong UMNO plak..tetapi, apa yg aku nampak, UMNO takkan berubah untuk selamanya kecuali pemimpin yg ada skrg (yg ada 'masalah') ditukar sepenuhnya. PRU13 baru ni hanya buang puak ‘racist’ sahaja, masih ada di dalam iaitu puak kapitalis..puak oportunis.. dalam PKR/PAS pun ada, btul tak..

Perubahan UMNO/BN hendaklah kepada lebih kepada perubahan kepada keadilan sebenar, demokrasi sebenar, tiada/minima rasuah/kroni, iaitu samarata dalam segala bentuk, bukan dalam bentuk material semata-mata. Ini tidak berlaku.

 

Gross distortions in Malaysia's voting system

Ramesh Rajaratnam

8:23AM May 9, 2013

COMMENT The recently completed May 5 general election (GE13) revealed some interesting facts and figures based on the results as published by the Election Commission.

There have been, for a long time, much criticism of the ‘first past the post' (FPTP) election system we practise in Malaysia, because of what is inherent in this antiquated system.

The FPTP is one of the legacies of the British rule in Malaya and was based on giving all segments of the populace a voice in Parliament. Hence, constituency boundaries were drawn based on this segmental need for representation.

The original intention was noble indeed, that people in Sungai Buloh should have a voice in Parliament, just as those from Shah Alam, even though the Shah Alam constituency may have a population five times larger.

To prevent abuse and disproportional representation, certain limits were set when our founding fathers drew up the federal constitution. One important feature was that there should not be a population variance greater than 20 percent between the smallest and largest constituencies.

This safeguard was gradually eroded by successive ruling governments, since they enjoyed two-thirds majority Parliament to amend the country's laws, until this sanity check on societal representation was totally removed.

As a result of this, today we have 26,000 voters in Putrajaya, Igan (18,000) and Lubok Antu (19,000) commanding the same parliamentary voice as those in Kapar (144,000), Serdang (133,000) and Gombak (123,000).

This hardly seems fair when three small zones command an equal representation in Parliament, compared with their brethren who are at least five times larger, at least from the perspective of a majority rule.

Disproportionate representation

Criticism of such disproportionate representation led to some countries, such as New Zealand, Australia and Israel, modifying their electoral constituencies to be more representative and hence, the FPTP no longer applies in toto in these countries.

In a related example, besides throwing 90,000 tonnes of tea into the Atlantic Ocean, a new country was born some 237 years ago simply because its ‘rakyat' couldn't accept taxation without representation. One can draw similar parallels, if this inequitable scenario was to ensue here in Malaysia.

The greatest disservice of this FPTP system was shown clearly in Malaysia in GE13 when 915,560 voters in East Malaysia sent 48 BN candidates to our Parliament, or simply put, the average vote cost per BN lawmaker was 19,074.

Because of the severe skewering (aka gerrymandering) of the constituency delineations, it cost an average of 84,053 votes to get one Pakatan Rakyat MP in East Malaysia, or 4.4 times more expensive.

On the national average, it cost BN 39,381 votes per MP as opposed to Pakatan's 63,191 votes. Quite frankly, Pakatan had to work 60 percent harder than the BN had to.

What this means is that unless the present delineation boundaries are redrawn to fix this severe misrepresentation of societal voice, any opposition will need about 60 percent of the national votes to be on par with BN come election time, forever.

Here, I dare opine that GE13 was largely won by BN by capitalising on the severely disproportional FPTP system, rather than on phantom voters, repeat voters and such. Several jumbo jets full of Bangladeshis, Burmese and Nepalese could not have caused the damage to Pakatan as done by this antiquated Westminster delineation system.

From a strategic point, there should have been more focus in the territories where the opposition could have got more "bang for its ringgit" (pun intended) because the voter distribution and pattern (based on past election results) would have been known upfront anyway.

Admittedly, getting Pakatan's voice to the people in the jungles of Borneo would have been a Herculean task, given the physical and political hurdles.

However, mathematically speaking, if Pakatan had won the same number of seats from the 915,560 voters and maintained the same results in the peninsula, it would be firmly in power now.

Perhaps that's the reason why the BN is believed to have chartered several flights to carry voters from the peninsula to Sabah and Sarawak. I'm inclined to believe that the BN knew, from day one, that this was how it would win GE13.

Some interesting facts

Based on the Election Commission website, let me highlight these other interesting facts from the FPTP vis-à-vis GE13:

1)      BN received 46.2 percent of the popular votes in Peninsular Malaysia and 54 percent in East Malaysia, or a national average of 47.4 percent.

2)      Based on this, BN was able to garner almost 51 percent of the parliamentary seats in the peninsula and 87.3 percent of those in Sabah and Sarawak, for a national average of 60 percent, or 133 seats.

3)      Interestingly, 8.2 percent of the voters (in Sabah and Sarawak) gave BN 22 percent of the parliamentary seats, meaning 39.2 percent of the voters (in the peninsula) gave it the remaining 38 percent in Parliament.

4)      Pakatan received 54 percent of the popular votes in Peninsular Malaysia and 35 percent in East Malaysia, for a national average of 51 percent.

5)      Based on the above, Pakatan was only able to garner 49 percent of the parliamentary seats in the peninsula and 12.7 percent of that in Sabah and Sarawak, for a national average of 40 percent, or 89 seats.

6)      It cost Pakatan 21 percent and 441 percent more votes per MP in the peninsula and East Malaysia respectively, to be on par with BN. On average nationally, Pakatan had to work 60 percent harder per MP than the BN.

7)      Because they only formed 29.8 percent of the voters in GE13, contrary to the "Chinese tsunami" conspiracy theory, even if 100 percent of Chinese Malaysians (and for good measure, let's also throw in 100 percent of Indian Malaysians as well) voted for the opposition, there is no way Pakatan could have logically garnered the support of 5,623,984 Malaysians.

 Conservatively adjusting for a 25 percent Chinese support for MCA and Gerakan (as was seen where there was a large Chinese voter base), at least three million voters therein were Malay/bumiputera.

This means, conservatively, 42 percent of the Malay/bumiputera electorate in Malaysia actually voted for Pakatan nationally. To put this into proper context, there was no such Chinese tsunami but instead, it was a Malay/bumiputera tsunami because 56 percent of the opposition's votes actually came from the Malays/bumiputera.

For Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to have made this arithmetic blunder publicly was totally ill-advised and it has now caused needless uneasiness among the rakyat.

8) Finally, as explained earlier, 915,560 people, who are basically very removed from urban and national politicking, more or less sealed the fate of 11,054,577 voters or about 29 million people in Malaysia - thanks to the FPTP system.

Seriously and practically speaking, would anybody consider 3.2 percent (915,560) of Malaysians deciding the future of the country a fair run of democracy under the FPTP voting system?

Without a concerted effort from our MPs to make our country fairer by insisting on equitable representation in Parliament, it will indeed be very difficult for Najib to ask for national reconciliation when the very premise of his assertion was fundamentally flawed.
If you don't know what's broken, how can you fix it?

DATO RAMESH RAJARATNAM is a chartered accountant and a keen follower of Malaysian politics.