COMMENT | Do we need more Malay representation in Parliament?

COMMENT | Let’s look at the government of the day. It is currently the Perikatan Nasional (PN) and in this coalition, the major parties are Bersatu and PAS. Sure, there are a few other parties like Gerakan. But it’s just a mosquito party with no seats in Parliament. The last I really heard anything significant from Gerakan is its loss of Penang in the 2008 general election.

PN doesn’t really have a majority in Parliament to form the government. So, it is currently relying heavily on Umno and a few other parties in Sabah and Sarawak. But check out the Cabinet. Out of the one prime minister and 35 ministers, only four are non-Malays and out of those four, only two are non-bumiputera.

I would have to say that for a cabinet that consists of 89 percent Malay representation, the Malays need not worry about under-representation. So, it baffles me to read about how PAS vice-president Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah and central committee member Khairuddin Aman Razali would like to delineate the voting lines to enable more Malay representation. Whatever it is now is still not enough?

This is shocking because for so long, we have been trying to push for the redelineation of the lines to make things more equal when it comes to representation. As it is, gerrymandering has been a problem for decades. Malaysia actually needs more equal representation...