LETTERS: It was reported that the Sarawak government has submitted a proposal to the federal government to increase the combined number of its parliamentary representatives, as well as for Sabah, by up to 35 per cent.
This means that the number of seats for Sabah and Sarawak will increase to 78.
Sarawak has 31 seats and Sabah, 25 seats, or a combined total of 25 per cent of the 222 seats.
While these states do occupy a larger land area than Peninsular Malaysia, representation in Parliament should be based on the population of voters.
In early 2022, it was reported that the total number of registered voters stood at 21 million, 1,943,074 of whom comprised Sarawak voters and Sabah had 1,670,354.
In percentage terms, this amounts to nine per cent of total voters from Sarawak and eight per cent from Sabah.
So I fail to understand why Sabah and Sarawak should demand greater representation as 83 per cent of the remaining voters are in Peninsular Malaysia.
The representation challenge in Peninsular Malaysia is of a different kind where voters have been crammed into constituencies thanks to the gerrymandering and redelineation carried out by previous administrations.
This has resulted in certain parliamentary constituencies in the Klang Valley and Selangor and other areas with high population densities having hundreds of thousands of voters in one constituency.
It is a common perception that the gerrymandering was done to separate urban and the rural voters so that the former, even though big in number, has only a small voice whereas the latter, despite its small number, has a bigger influence.
It is something to ponder for the administration led by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
The government should direct the Election Commission to undertake an exercise to eliminate gerrymandering and unfair redelineation.
It can do that by redefining borders in constituencies that have 100,000 voters or more.
SUSAI ANTHONY MUTHU
Puchong, Selangor
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times