KUCHING, Feb 4 —Two Sarawak-based parties are alleging that the proposed re-delineation of the state electoral boundaries is racially-tainted and seen to be prejudicial against Chinese voters.
The two are Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP), a component of the state Barisan Nasional, and the opposition Sarawak Parti Keadilan Rakyat.
“There appears to be so. There is a perception of discrimination against certain ethnic community in favour of others,” SUPP secretary general Datuk Sebastian Ting told reporters at the State EC office here today.
“It is quite unfair, and we are asking the EC to look into this thing properly and to come up with a system acceptable to all.”
For example, he said out of 13 seats with over 20,000 voters, 12 are Chinese majority constituencies.
“In fact all the Chinese majority seats have more than the average number of voters. This paints the picture that the system discriminates against this community,” he said, adding that this leads to resentment by the Chinese community as they see this as unfair.
He then proposed the EC carve up the oversized constituencies and limit these to no more than 20,000 voters each, adding that SUPP submitted four petitions involving the parliamentary constituency of Serian and the state constituencies of Pelawan, Dudong and Senadin.
Sarawak PKR vice chairman Ali Biju said the proposed re-delineation of constituencies contained elements of gerrymandering and malapportionment.
“The most obvious cases are the state constituencies of Simunjan and Sadong Jaya and the new constituency of Gedong, all under Batang Sadong parliamentary constituency.
He said it was illogical that the four areas—each with under 8,000 voters and less than an hour’s drive from Kuching—will be treated the same as the larger, more inaccessible Lama constituency that was previously proposed.
Ali claimed that the “cracking up” of the Batang Sadong parliamentary constituency into three state constituencies was “obviously” to favour a certain ethnic group.
Ali, who is also the Krian state lawmaker, said an overhaul of how electoral boundaries are drawn and redrawn is overdue.
“We have the blessings of our party national leadership council to mount a forceful campaign to challenge the proposed recommendations of the EC,” he said, referring to his party’s application for a judicial review of the re-delineation.
Under the proposed redrawing of the state electoral boundaries, 11 new seats are created, making the total number to 82 from the present 71 in the Sarawak State Assembly.
The new seats are: N13 Batu Kitang (20,107), N17 Stakan (12,761),N18 Serembu (9,677), N23 Tribuh (13,160), N26 Gedong 6,340), N40 Kabong (9,759), N57 Tellian (9,858), N63 Selirik (10,560), N66 Murum (7,648), N 70 Samalaju (12,927), and N78 Long Lama (8,057).
