Stop, thief! Malaysia’s PM is about to steal an election
IN MOST countries a government that allowed $4.5bn to go missing from a
state development agency would struggle to win re-election. If some $681m had
appeared in the prime minister’s personal account around the same time, which
he breezily explained away as a gift from an unnamed admirer, the task would be
all the harder. An apparent cover-up, involving the dismissal of officials
investigating or merely complaining about the scandal, might be the last straw
for voters. But in Malaysian elections, alas, voters do not count for much.
Under any reasonable electoral
system, the coalition running Malaysia would not be in office in the first
place. The Barisan Nasional, as it is known, barely squeaked back into power at
the most recent election, in 2013. It lost the popular vote, earning only 47%
to the opposition’s 51%. But thanks to the shamelessly biased drawing of the
constituencies, that was enough to secure it 60% of the 222 seats in parliament.
This ill-deserved victory,
however, occurred before news broke of the looting of 1MDB, a development
agency whose board of advisers was chaired by the prime minister, Najib Razak.
America’s Justice Department has accused him and his stepson, among others, of
siphoning money out of 1MDB through an elaborate series of fraudulent
transactions. Much of the money went on luxuries, it says, including paintings
by Picasso and Monet, a private jet, diamond necklaces, a penthouse in
Manhattan and a gambling spree in Las Vegas. In February Indonesia seized a
$250m yacht that the Americans say was bought with Malaysian taxpayers’ money.
Authorities in Switzerland and Singapore have also been investigating.
Mr Najib denies any
wrongdoing—and of course he has loyal supporters. But his administration has
not tried very hard to clear things up. Only one person has been charged in
connection with the missing billions: an opposition politician who leaked
details of the official investigation after the government had refused to make
it public.
All this is unlikely to have
improved Mr Najib’s standing with voters. Yet an election must be held by
August. Faced with the risk of losing power, the government is rigging the
system even more brazenly. Parliament will soon vote on new constituency
boundaries. The proposed map almost guarantees Mr Najib another term, despite
his appalling record.
How to rig an election
One trick is gerrymandering,
drawing constituency boundaries so that lots of opposition voters are packed
into a few seats, while ruling-party supporters form a narrow majority in a
larger number. Lots of this goes on in Malaysia, as elsewhere: the new
boundaries put two opposition bastions in the state of Perak into the same
seat. Gerrymandering is made even easier by another electoral abuse called
malapportionment. This involves creating districts of uneven populations, so
that those which support the opposition are much bigger than those that back
the government. That means, in effect, that it takes many more votes to elect
an opposition MP than it does a government one. The practice is so unfair that
it is illegal in most countries, including Malaysia, where the constitution
says that electoral districts must be “approximately equal” in size.
Nonetheless, the constituencies
in the maps proposed by the government-appointed election commission range in
size from 18,000 voters to 146,000 (see article). The Barisan Nasional controls all
the 15 smallest districts; 14 of the 15 biggest ones are in the hands of the
opposition. The average Barisan seat has 30,000 fewer voters than the average
opposition one. And this is the election commission’s second go at the maps—the
first lot were even more lopsided.
Unfortunately, the electoral
boundaries are not the only way in which the system is stacked against the
opposition. The media are supine. The police and the courts seem more
interested in allegations of minor offences by opposition figures than they are
in the blatant bilking of the taxpayer over 1MDB and the open violation of the
constitution at the election commission. The latest budget seems intended to
buy the loyalty of civil servants, by promising a special bonus to be disbursed
just after the likely date of the election.
But these biases, as bad as
they are, are not the same as fiddling constituencies. As long as the electoral
system is fair, Malaysians will be able to judge the government and vote
accordingly. But a rigged system will rob their votes of meaning. That is the
point, of course. Mr Najib may be venal, but he is not stupid. He fears that
most voters would not return him to office if given a choice, so he is taking
their choice away.
This article appeared in
the Leaders section of the print edition under the
headline "Stop, thief!"
评论
发表评论