JULY 5 — The answer to a circumspect Pakatan Harapan, a waning Umno and frustrated voters is to end the first past the post (FPTP) elections in Malaysia.
The Election Commission can provide much relief to the country by implementing a new voting system at the 15th General Election.
This column has championed the reform of our elections for years, and a preferential (also referred to as alternative) system will improve radically the democratic outcome at our polls. Other methods are equally welcome to be debated, but certainly what’s imperative is the retirement of the FPTP.
Presently, strategic voting trumps a sincere effort to gauge the qualified intention of voters.
Actually doable
It is possible now.
Realities like the new independence for the EC under Parliament would empower the commission to study, rationalise and implement in the three years leading up to a possible election in 2021.
Barisan Nasional (BN) relied on vote fractions from various segments which its opponents were incapable of.
PAS can dominate Islamist votes but are then heavily opposed by secularists, and DAP dominates non-Muslim vote only to be a zero with Muslim voters. BN navigates the sentiments to win through the FPTP system. Enough bits from all segments add up to victory.
But today, BN is dead, in the Semenanjung and Borneo. There is no natural advantage with the FPTP for Umno, as it can only draw support from fewer segments. Therefore, the 40 or 50 MPs the party still possesses — subject to a proper loyalty pledge, most certainly in Sabah — might find a reform attractive.
They can work to draw the second vote from PAS voters who are neither enamoured by Mahathir nor pleased with the secularism of Keadilan. Umno can be the destination of the second rank among Muslim voters, which will bear fruit all across the west coast of the Semenanjung.
Electoral reform is not merely theory, today.
Who is top dog in Pakatan?
The rehashed argument among Pakatan Harapan supporters, is the relative strength of the various coalition members, or pertinently who is strongest. The issue has picked pace with the disproportionate number of ministries in the Cabinet to party weightage, as decided by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
One school argues, especially with the uniform adoption of the Keadilan (PKR) logo at GE14, that the vote for any candidate was for the Pakatan brand rather than the respective parties.
Curiously, just as many argue because the parties only used one party’s emblem — despite the partners reassuring their base they are still voting for DAP, Pribumi and Amanah even if they marked the EYE — the rakyat were indeed selecting Keadilan more so than Pakatan as a whole, because they have built the brand over two decades.
Obviously, non-PKR fanboys claim that it has always been a vote for the coalition collectively so counting the worth of members based on which party the respective MPs are from does not matter. The 113 seats won should be equally distributed to all four parties.
So does PKR own 50 of the 120 — higher count after party hops since polling day — or not?
A preferential vote would allow PKR, Pribumi and Amanah to appear on the same vote chit, and advise their voters in their campaign to place any of the three as their top three in their preferred order, and always, always list Umno and PAS at the bottom.
The true strength of the Pakatan parties will be revealed, without the risk of strategic vote under FPTP dictating a Umno victory through vote splits.
Then, the Pakatan parties can assert their true value in the minds of the voters, rather than guesstimate their true vote. Otherwise, the debate never is resolved.
With it also, comes a solution to whether Anwar Ibrahim has the true mandate of those leaning to Pakatan. The former leader of opposition can secure his party’s leadership, and in general, display a superior support of the people as compared to other Pakatan parties under the control of other leaders.
Scrap the Grand Alliance
The headache for Pakatan members is the recurrent demand to prove they have the most support in any constituency in order to have priority to contest the seat. Four-party negotiators sit in Kafka-esque rooms to tell their other partners; that indeed the people of Bagan Datoh have more love for Keadilan because it controls one state seat; or that as a traditional Umno seat deserves a transition to Pribumi; or that based on mosque memberships, Amanah should have the advantage.
It goes in circles, this need to persist with a grand coalition despite fundamental differences among parties because that’s what it takes to tame the FPTP system.
Plus, at this time, Umno would not know how to build a new grand coalition, which is why they would be partial to electoral reform.
And for this column’s sanity, Pakatan leaders would not need to perform repeated feats of doublespeak to maintain both their party and coalition’s viewpoints. There is a genuine fear when they are alternating views without skipping a beat over and over, they may end up with no spine at all, but only as another populist proposition.
Another BN with a different name.
All small parties can enter
If Pakatan voters in Sungai Siput were allowed to vote preferentially, they’d would have put then-two time MP M. Jeyakumar as their first choice if they can have Pakatan as their second choice, therefore nullifying MIC’s chance of stealing their seat through a vote split.
Parties like Jeyakumar’s Parti Sosialis Malaysia and Parti Rakyat Malaysia who are vehemently opposed to Umno had to be ignored by voters who may have voted for them if they were not under threat of the old dictators winning when they fail to vote strategically.
Even if proportional representation is realised, then PSM might have the single or so representative in Parliament to reflect their substantial support in pockets of west Semenanjung.
Adjustment period and tools available
There is ample time to orientate voters.
Ranking parties in a voting chit is far less challenging than regular actions Malaysians perform like filling up their tax-forms, read privacy clauses for Internet use and pass a driving test. The argument that the FPTP is the easiest method is disingenuous and worst, condescending to the people.
The FPTP does not respond to the valid question of how to better represent the intention of the voter which is always qualified.
Support from civil society and elections monitor groups would be readily available, and they would be excited to lend a hand in upping the process of unearthing the intention of the voter.
Mature our democracy
The FPTP is obsolete, an anachronism.
It persisted because at a time without logistics, it was workable. There are a multitude of options, ready to improve our means to measure our voters’ views.
The expired notion of binary choices only straitjackets voters. The binary held us back for decades and its cost on our stunted political development remains.
To craft a positive future is through reform, with EC, a free EC putting a set of proposals to Parliament, including the preferential vote.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
