Press Digest - Gerakan wary about proposed renaming and redelineation of constituencies
PETALING JAYA: Gerakan vice-president Datuk Dominic Lau Hoe Chai says the increase in the number of Chinese voters in a number of mixed seats the party intends to contest under the proposed renaming and redelineation of constituencies is detrimental to the party.
It is understood that seven parliamentary and 12 state seats the party contested in the last general election are affected by the exercise.
Of these seats, the parliamentary seats of Teluk Intan and Taiping in Perak, Batu and Segambut in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, Puchong in Selangor, Simpang Renggam in Johor and the Bachang state seat in Malacca are mixed constituencies with none of the ethnic groups making up more than 50% of the electorate prior to the redelineation exercise.
"Our analyses show that the percentage of Chinese voters in the majority of the mixed seats the party intends to contest has increased whereas Malay-majority constituencies see an increase in the number of Malay voters. This does not augur well for the party," said Lau.
This is because the party has a better chance of winning in mixed seats than in Chinese-majority seats, he said.
He said the tendency for Chinese to vote for the Opposition means Gerakan has to depend more on the support of other races in mixed seats.
Speaking to Sin Chew Daily in an interview published today, he said the proposed redelineation of constituencies is segregating voters along racial lines.
This is against the multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-cultural approach Malaysia has been emphasising, he said, adding that it is a very unwise move.
"All this while, we have been talking about unity and emphasising that multi-racialism is our greatest advantage. But now the Election Commission is separating Malays and Chinese in elections. This is against the idea of racial unity."
Nevertheless, Lau stressed that the redelineation exercise will not affect its list of candidates for the next general election.