KUCHING: Senadin and Tupong may be among the state seats affected if a redelineation exercise were to be carried out by the Election Commission (EC) in Sarawak.
Senior vice president of Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) Datuk Seri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah said while he is not in the know of the EC’s progress on a possible redelineation exercise in the state, he believes they would be aiming at Senadin and Tupong constituencies as they have the greatest number of voters.
“If one seat has too many voters, for an example, Senadin which has more than 100,000 voters, and we have other state seats that only have 10,000 voters, we have to do a leverage.
“But rural bias has always been the rule of the thumb.
“We cannot focus on urban areas alone despite the fact that urban areas have larger numbers of voters,” he told a press conference before flagging off DayakDaily’s D’Drift 2024 here on Monday (March 11).
He said one of the prime examples is Telang Usan constituency as it has only one representative to serve the whole area.
“Thus, you have to strike a balance so that the number of voters and the landmass of the constituency has got to be balanced up. Only then we can say it is fair.
“If you are saying it is not fair because your vote is less in value compared to the rural ones, you have to consider the elected representative who is looking after a huge area. In comparison, you can just visit your whole constituency in half a day,” he added.
Abdul Karim said this when asked about the possible redelineation exercise rumoured to be focusing on suburban areas.
The Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Minister said apart from increasing the number of state seats, he hoped the redelineation exercise would increase the number of parliamentary seats in Sarawak which would close the gap and bring Sarawak closer to slightly more than one-third of the number of parliamentary seats in the Dewan Rakyat as enshrined under the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63).
On Jan 1, EC chairman Tan Sri Abdul Ghani Salleh hinted about carrying out a redelineation exercise in Sarawak as it has been eight years from the date of completion of the previous redelineation.
The most recent redelineation exercise for Sarawak was in 2015.
On Oct 8, 2023, PBB’s Special Convention for Betong Zone passed a resolution, proposing that the number of parliamentary seats in Sarawak be increased by 12, in line with the quest for one-third representation for Sabah and Sarawak in the Dewan Rakyat.
As the moment, Sarawak has 31 parliamentary seats whereas Sabah has 25 seats, making up only 25 per cent of the total 222 seats in parliament.
The remaining 75 per cent or 166 seats are held by representatives in Peninsular Malaysia.
