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FAC News - Wednesday, June 25, 2003 3:02 PM Gerrymandering the Malaysian elections The new seat allocations, however, were only in
the states of Johor, Selangor and Is it a coincident that the states that were predominantly "Malay" were not allocated any additional seats? And why were additional seats allocated only to states where the ruling party is strong? How would this affect the next (11th) General Election just around the corner and which will have to be held the latest by next year? Let us first analysis the previous general elections to get a better understanding of the issue. An analysis of the previous General Elections The last (10th) general election was
held on Malaysian elections is about one thing - seats and not votes. In many instances, the ruling party won less than two-thirds of the votes but managed more than two-thirds of the seats. 1959 General Elections In the First Parliamentary General Election in
1959, the voter turnout was only 73.3% or 1.55 million voters. 600,000
people decided to just stay home. Surprisingly the Alliance Party
managed only 51.8% of the votes. You would imagine they would have
performed better than that, considering they took the country through
It must be noted that the Alliance Party comprised of UMNO, MCA and MIC. Therefore UMNO, on their own, did not even get 50% of the votes - which means many Malays did not support UMNO. So much for Malay supremacy touted by UMNO! In terms of seats though, they won 74 out of 104 or around 71%. So they managed to form the government. 1964 General Elections Five years on, in the 1964 General Election, the
voter turnout increased slightly to 78.9% or 2.1 million voters.
In this election the ruling party garnered 58.5% of the votes. The
increased votes can easily be attributed to the increase in registered
voters; 2.7 million. The number of registered voters had increased
by 28% but the ruling party saw an increase of 50% in their votes.
500,000 more voters came out to vote for this election and 400,000
of these votes went to the 1969 General Elections In 1969, the voter turnout dropped back to 73.6%.
In this historic election (historic only because of the racial riots
that followed it) the ruling party managed a paltry 44.9% of the
votes. Out of the 144 seats contested, the That’s when all hell broke loose – organized chaos if you wish - infamously known as the May 13 incident. 1974 General Elections The ruling party probably performed their best
ever during the 1974 General Election. It managed to obtain 60.7%
of the votes. But this is only because the old In terms of seats it was almost a clean sweep for Barisan Nasional as the opposition managed only 19 out of the 144 seats contested. Something must be wrong with the system when the opposition won only 13% of the seats though 40% of the voters voted for them. In this election the voter turnout was only 75.1%. Again, 600,000 people did not leave home. 1978 General Elections The 1978 General Election was not any better and was almost a repeat of 1974. Only 75.3% of the voters came out to vote. The ruling government won 57.2% of the votes, but this time their number of seats won dropped to 130. The opposition managed to win 24 seats on the new enlarged total of 154 seats – a slightly better performance for the opposition. 1982 General Elections The 1982 General Election was, again, a duplicate of the election before that - 74.39% voter turnout, 60.54% votes to the ruling party giving them 132 seats, and 22 seats to the opposition – almost status quo. 1986 General Elections From there, PAS seemed to be going downhill. The following General Election in 1986 was a disaster for PAS when it won only one seat and lost Kelantan to UMNO. Ironically, DAP saw its best ever performance by wining 24 seats. Barisan Nasional, which got 57.28% of the votes, won 148 seats or 84% out of the total of 177 seats. This was the turning point for both PAS and DAP – PAS its lowest point and DAP its highest. One interesting point to note is that the voter turnout in 1986 was the worst in the history of our General Elections as only 69.97% of the voters came out to vote. It was said the low voter turnout was one factor working against the opposition. More then 2 million people stayed home in that election. 1990 General Elections 1990 was the most interesting year. In the General Election held that year, the ruling party managed only 53.38% of the votes. Voter turnout was only slightly better at 72.7%. A "record" 2.2 million people stayed home and did not bother to come out and vote. Considering the ruling party managed only around 3 million votes and the opposition obtained 2.6 million votes, the 2.2 million voters who stayed home was quite significant. If 8% more people had come out to vote, and if they had voted for the opposition, the results would have been quite different. Of course, if they had voted for the ruling party instead, then it would not have mattered much. Anyway, the DAP lost four seats and managed to retain only 20, PAS & Semangat 46 shared 15 seats between them, PBS in Sabah got 14 seats, while four independent candidates got in. Out of 180 seats contested, the ruling party still managed 127 seats or 70% - on slightly more than HALF the votes they obtained. Again, this showed that, in Malaysian elections, it is SEATS AND NOT VOTES THAT MATTER. 1995 General Elections During the 1995 Parliamentary General Election, PAS and Semangat 46 got one seat less each and, combined, they managed only 13 seats. DAP did quite badly at nine seats while PBS got only eight seats. There were nine million registered voters that year but, just like in 1990, more than two million people stayed home. The ruling party obtained 65.2% of the votes and won 162 out of the 192 seats contested giving them 85%. They say 1990 was the
1999 General Elections In Peninsular Malaysia, the Barisan Nasional (BN)
won 102 out of the 144 seats it contested. This gave the BN 70.8%
of the seats, 4.2% more than what they needed to retain their two-thirds
majority in Parliament. With the 46 seats they won in Full analysis of the 1999 General Election This could be viewed by many as quite an achievement
for the BN who have never lost control of Parliament over the 43
years since This is because they know that, though they came in with more than the two-thirds of the seats, they failed to win two-thirds of the votes. Out of a total of about 5.8 million voters in Peninsular Malaysia, BN managed to convince only 3.1 million voters to vote for them. This came to less than 54% of the total voters who cast their votes – far short of the two-thirds they need to legitimately claim that the people support the BN. 1999 General Election Parliament seat breakdown Low Voter Turnout What is most interesting to note though, only 73% of the voters came out to vote. Perak was the lowest at 66% followed by the Federal Capital at 70%. Why this low turnout? Thousands of complaints were received that voters who had voted in that same area for the last few elections suddenly found their names missing from the list. Others complained that someone else had voted in their place – when they went to vote they found that their names had been "cut off" from the register (which means they had already voted). Then there were cases where voters’ names had been transferred to another state so they could not vote as there was no way they could make it across the country in time to vote. It was estimated that around 80% to 82% of the registered voters would have come out to vote this time around - if they could have. This would have made it one of the highest ever in Malaysian election history. Many did come out but were sent home disappointed. If these 7% to 9% had not been denied their right to vote, and if the 680,000 voters who had registered earlier but could not vote, were included in the voters’ list, an additional one million people would have voted in the 1999 General Election. The affect of the Disenfranchised Voters According to the Elections Commission, 95% of these 680,000 disenfranchised voters are below the age of 30. The Alternative Front or Barisan Alternatif (BA) claims that more than 70% of these people barred from voting are their supporters. If this were true, then the BN would have obtained 3.4 million votes while the BA 3.2 million. This would have changed the results drastically, probably even giving the BA an additional 30 to 40 Parliamentary seats. Looking at the wafer-thin wins the BN candidates obtained this assumption is more than possible. BA won only 42 of the Parliament seats contested. The BA claims the number would have been between 70 to 80; if the elections had been free and fair. All they needed was 65 seats to deny the BN their two-thirds majority in Parliament. Check your voter registration here
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