Ideas for our democratic institutions

Some views and proposals to improve our electoral process may be worth exploring.

There have recently been some interesting proposals to improve our democracy.

First, in light of repeated by-elections caused by the deaths of elected representatives or an election victory nullified by the Election Court, the former deputy chairman of the Election Commission, Wan Ahmad Wan Omar, suggested that the winning party replace the deceased individual with another candidate of their own.

While this may seem like an effective cost-cutting exercise, it overlooks the fact that our Federal Constitution still regards the individual, not their party, as being elected – a fact unchanged by the amendments – passed last year to prevent party hopping.

Quite rightly, the suggestion for parties to replace representatives was rejected by politicians from both sides of the political divide. (As a side note, there is no by-election if a vacancy occurs within two years of the end of the legislature’s tenure.)

Second, a more radical, but not new, suggestion relates to improving the representation of the people of Kuala Lumpur. Lee Chean Chung, the MP for Petaling Jaya, proposed “a mega metropolis by having the city return to Selangor to ease development and allow for better planning”.

In addition to citing “the economic synergy” of combining Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, he said Kuala Lumpur residents would get their second vote by participating in Selangor elections. Currently, KL contributes 11 parliamentary seats but is administered by Kuala Lumpur City Hall.

What is interesting about this proposal is that, according to some historians, the primary political motivation for removing KL from Selangor was precisely to prevent KL voters from contributing to the Selangor state assembly (and therefore the government).

Particularly after the 1969 elections, it was apparently thought politically expedient to remove KL from Selangor to ensure that Selangor would remain in government hands. There were already precedents in other federations for their capitals to be, or be situated on land with, some sort of special status (for example, Washington, DC, in 1790, Canberra in 1938, and New Delhi in 1956), and this was the ready excuse that was employed to justify it.

While from a historical perspective, the idea might make sense, it may lead to other, more problematic calls for territories to be “returned” to other states (see my recent article, “Pointers on Historical Sovereignty”, June 16, 2023).

Such a “reunion” would cause an even bigger imbalance between this entity and the other states of Malaysia, which might also resent the fact that for 49 years, KL was the beneficiary of direct federal investment, and these benefits are simply being gifted back to Selangor! No, the better thing to do to improve the democratic power of KL residents is, just like with the rest of the country, to reintroduce local elections, although the suggestion of a directly elected mayor might be effective too.

The third proposal is a relatively novel one. It came from Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim, the MP for Arau, who suggested that Malaysia should emulate Singapore’s group representation constituency (GRC) system to enhance representation of minority ethnicities in parliament.

The intention behind the idea was certainly welcomed by political boffins I spoke to (who were additionally surprised that such an idea came from a Perikatan Nasional MP), but a Singaporean bureaucrat I spoke to sounded a word of caution. While a direct link between a single politician and constituency remains intact, there may be a sense of “diluted” legitimacy, since some candidates will be perceived as better than others within the same group.

Indeed, this fact affects candidate selection and distribution by parties: weaker candidates can deliberately be grouped with stronger ones to increase their chances of winning. Or, in other cases, all the senior or prominent members of a party can be placed together in an attempt to cause an upset.

Such a proposal deserves further study in the Malaysian context, but I would again like to draw attention to Article 45 (4)(b) regarding our Dewan Negara, which envisages that senators “be elected by the direct vote of the electors of that state”.

Of course, in the first place, we should look again at the balance of senators between those representing the states and federal territories versus those appointed by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, but here is a chance to introduce an additional electoral system into our democracy, increasing the accountability of our upper House.

Regardless, the fact that such suggestions can be made and considered at all is a sign of ever-increasing possibilities in how we think of our democratic institutions!

Tunku Zain Al-‘Abidin is founding president of Ideas. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.