Sarawak PKR takes Election Commission to court over state redelineation

By: Unknown on 2:47 PM

The proposed new Sarawak electoral map as drawn by the Election Commission. The state's opposition is challenging the legitimacy of the redelineation exercise by the EC. – January 28, 2015.Sarawak PKR will challenge the Election Commission (EC) in court over its proposed boundary redelineation of state seats, the party's state vice-chairman See Chee How said today.An application for judicial review was filed this morning at the Kuching High Court together to get the court to declare the whole exercise as unconstitutional.The court has fixed the leave application to be heard on February 2.See, who is the Batu Lintang state assemblyman, is an applicant along with Paul Baya, a voter in Ulu Baram who is also a PKR grassroots leader. EC chairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof is named as the respondent.See and Baya want the court to declare that the proposed redelineation is unconstitutional as it was not done in accordance with provisions in the Federal Constitution.See said there was a "serious and considerable" lack in detailed particulars of the proposed recommendations and the draft constituency plan.While these had been opened for inspection from January 5 to February 4 this year, the plaintiffs said the EC had not given sufficient notice on the proposals to the constituencies affected."The EC had only published the notice in the sister papers of the New Sarawak Tribune and the Utusan Sarawak which has limited circulation in Sarawak, and we have affidavit evidence filed to show that these papers have no circulation in various rural centres whose voters are affected," See said in a press statement today.Additionally, the EC had published the notice of the proposed redelineation in the Sabah edition of the Borneo Post, he noted."If this is not ignorance on the part of the EC, there is certainly negligence or a mistake," he said.They also contend that the EC had violated the Federal Constitution by changing a parliamentary constituency in Sarawak in the course of redrawing the state seat boundaries, as the EC had no power under the law to change the composition of the Parliament on its own.In the proposed redelineati
on, the PKR-held state seat of Batu Lintang has been moved from the Stamping parliamentary seat to the Bandar Kuching parliamentary constituency. The Mambong parliamentary seat also had its named changed to Puncak Borneo.See (pic) also noted discrepancies in the notice and schedules gazetted and published in Sarawak media from the one displayed at the EC's office in Sarawak.The EC had also failed to display the electoral roll of voters affected by the proposed boundary redrawing, leaving people no way to check if they were impacted by the exercise.Instead, the electoral roll was only made available by paying RM4,531.20 for a copy on a compact disk.See and Baya also said they had found a discrepancy in the number of voters in the EC's electoral roll issued in the compact disk, and in the details of the proposed boundary redrawing by a difference of 2,259 voters."The voters, therefore, will not know whether they are affected and how they may be affected by the proposed delimitation and review exercise," they said, adding that it was "clear and obvious evidence of malapportionment and gerrymandering" as alleged by various citizen's groups.The proposed redelineation creates 11 new state seats in Sarawak, raising the number of seats to 82. Sarawak is due to hold state elections next year . – January 28, 2015.