Only 17 per cent of votes needed to form govt, says action group

SUBANG JAYA: Malaysia may have 10.9 million registered voters but a political party only needs 1.85 million votes — a mere 17 per cent of the total — to win a simple majority during the general election.

This was among the statistics revealed yesterday by Tindak Malaysia, a political social-economic NGO established in October 2008 to educate, empower and encourage Malaysians on their rights as voters.

Its founder, Wong Piang Yow, said most Malaysians were unaware of such facts and their own legal rights when voting.

He said they should educate themselves by attending voters education classes organised by Tindak Malaysia such as the Polling Agent, Counting Agent and Barung Agent to find out more about some of the bizarre statistics the NGO had collected over the years.

Held since Jan 2011, these classes, which revolved around voters' rights and the handling of elections in Malaysia, would run for four hours each.

On a different note, Wong said Tindak Malaysia was in the final stages of drafting the amendments to the election laws to be submitted to the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on electoral reform in early March.

"We worked with Bersih 2.0 committee on the proposed amendments and have identified 100 changes to the election laws needed for a free and fair elections to be held in the country,""After this, we will move on to propose a delineation process of the whole Selangor due to inconsistency in the drawing of constitutional boundaries,” said Wong.

Wong claimed that it was due to such inconsistencies that only 17 per cent of the Malaysian electorate is needed to win a simple majority in the election.

"For example, Putrajaya has just over 6,000 voters and is a parliamentary seat. Kapar, meanwhile, has 112,000 voters.

Let’s say both constituencies receive an allocation of RM1 million, is it fair to the electorate in Kapar?" he asked. Wong, a former financial advisor, admitted that changing electoral laws would not be an easy process.

"That is why we need the public to apply pressure to the Election Commission and relevant parties to make these amendments."

Tindak Malaysia currently conducts regular weekly sessions during weekends at the Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) headquarters. Training enquiries can be made at pacabatraining@ gmail.com.