The onus is on the Election Commission to prove that it is not gerrymandering the current constituency redelineation exercise as in the past to keep UMNO in power.

There are two reasons why the Election Commission shoulders such an onus.

Firstly, the public admission or confession at the end of 2013 by the former longest-serving Secretary and later Chairman of the Election Commission, Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman, who managed six of the 13 general elections and responsible for three of the four electoral constituency redelineations in Malaysia that he had gerrymandered the redelineations to ensure that the Malays remain in power.

Secondly, preliminary study of the current redelineation exercise indicate that it is driven by the overall agenda to keep UMNO in power and to eliminate Opposition leaders in vulnerable seats from Parliament, like Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin in Pagoh and Nurul Izzah Anwar in Lembah Pantai than to comply with the democratic and constitutional principle of “one man, one vote, one value” and to establish that the Election Commission is transparent, independent and professional not beholden to the dictates of the government of the day. Read the rest of this entry »