Elections are a crucial part of Malaysian constitutional law, because they provide the basis of Malaysia’s claim to have parliamentary democracy and representative government, although the government has been the same since Merdeka. To ensure proper representation, there has to be a proper electoral system. The current electoral system practised in Malaysia is First Past The Post (FPTP) system.
Majoritarian Systems – Who wins the majority wins the seats
1. First Past The Post
2. Alternative Vote System
3. Supplementary Vote System
Proportional Systems (fairest) – Every vote the party obtains is considered before deciding on the number of seats each party gets
1. Single Transferrable Vote System
2. Party List System
Hybrid Systems – Combines Majoritarian system and Proportional system
1. Additional Member System
2. A.V. Plus System
First Past The Post (FPTP) System/ Simple Majority System
Under this system, the candidate who gains the highest number of votes in the election wins the seat in his or her constituency, irrespective of the proportion of votes cast for himself or his opponents. For example, if the votes cast for individual candidates at an election are John 3,200, Mark 2,800 and Brown 2,400, John still wins the election although 5,200 or 70% voted for other candidates. The party that wins the majority number of seats is the party that wins the election, and that party will form the government.
Advantages
- It is the simplest to understand, to operate, to use, and to count votes. The voters only choose whichever party they want and the results can be obtained very quickly.
- Each constituency is represented by a Member of Parliament. It is good because the constituents will know who their representative is.
- There is a link between the MP and the constituent. There will only be one MP in the constituency, thus, the constituent will know which MP to turn to whenever there is a problem.
- This system encourages a strong and stable government. Why is this so? The biggest party during the election will normally have the support of more people compared to smaller parties. Hence, more members, stronger campaigning powers and advertising powers. In every constituency, the stronger party will win the seat even though there may be massive support for the opposition
- No coalition government will be formed. It means that the government will be more accountable as they cannot blame any minority parties for bad decisions.
- Party strongholds. There will be strongholds all over the country, meaning that the constituencies will always be won by the ruling party as they have the support of the majority even if they made bad decisions, possibly due to better candidates. The opposition might have strong support, but insufficient to topple the bigger party
Disadvantages
- The system is not proportionate. It lacks the concept of proportional representation. It means that the number of seats which a party obtains in Parliament is not proportional to the actual number of votes gained. This is because under the system, the winner takes it all.
- There are many wasted votes. The total number of votes cast will not be taken into account when it comes to the allocation of seats in Parliament. For example, in UK, John (Conservative Party) gets 8,000 votes, Brian (Labour Party) gets 7,000 votes and Sarah (Liberal Party) gets 5,000 votes, the winning candidate will still be John even if his total number of votes is lower than that of the other two parties combined. In the 1997 UK elections, Labour Party won 44.4% of total votes but they gained 419 out of 659 seats, which means that more than 50% of the seats. This shows that the amount of votes wasted is huge.
- FPTP does not require the candidate to obtain the majority of votes. It does not follow the principle of “1 man, 1 vote, 1 value”. As a whole, sometimes the ruling party might not even have half the seats in Parliament.
- This system translates a small number of votes into a big number of seats. In the 1983 UK elections, Labour Party won 27% of total votes, while the SDP-Liberal Alliance won 25% of total votes. However, Labour controlled 33% of the seats while SDP-Liberal only won 3.5% of seats. This shows that Labour won slightly more votes yet they obtained much more seats.
- The government sometimes becomes too strong and too stable. They will end up dominating the Parliament and they will pass laws as they wish.
Alternative Vote System and Supplementary Vote System
-Both systems are similar to FPTP as they are all Majoritarian systems. There will still be constituencies and in each constituency, there will only be one Member of Parliament. The candidate who wins the majority of votes in the constituency will still win the seat.
AVS
-The main difference between AVS and FPTP is that voting is done according to preference.
- To win the election, the candidate must have at least obtained 50% of first preference votes. In other words, 50% of voters must put him as number 1 to become an MP. The voter marks his ballot paper with preferences expressed in numerical order. The candidate who gets the lowest first preference votes will be redistributed in accordance with that candidate’s supporters’ second preferences. This process is continued until one candidate achieves an overall majority of votes.
- The disadvantage is that some people only have one preference. It also takes more time to calculate the votes
SVS
- It is very similar to AVS
- The only difference is that the voter’s choice is only 1st and 2nd preference, instead of ranking all the candidates. If nobody reaches 50%, then votes cast for all candidates other than the top two are redistributed between the two top candidates until a clear winner emerges.
-The advantages and disadvantages are similar to the FPTP system.
Proportional Representation System
-Proportional Representation simply refers to an electoral system in which parties gain seats in proportion to the number of votes cast for them. The percentage of total votes is proportional to the total number of seats. For example, 25% of votes will result in 25% of total seats. There are two types of proportional representation, i.e. the Single Transferrable Vote System and the Party List System
STV
- Under this system, multi-member constituencies between 5 to 7 members are required. Voters list the candidates in order of preference. The principle used in vote counting is that the candidate only needs a certain number or quota of votes to be elected and any votes he receives beyond this figure are surplus. Once the candidate has received the quota necessary to secure his election, the surplus votes are redistributed among other candidates according to 2nd preferences.
Party List System
Under this system, each party is allowed to put up a list of candidates equal to the number of seats to be filled. The voters vote for a party rather than an individual. The voters will see a list of all candidates for a particular party and vote for the list as a whole. Seats are allocated in proportion to the votes cast. For instance, the total number of votes polled by each party is then divided by the quota. Suppose the quota is 10,000 and a particular party list gets 50,000 votes. The first 5 names of the list are declared elected.
Advantages
- Every vote has a value, there will no longer be wasted votes; “1 man, 1 vote, 1 value”. Every vote has an equal value because there are no more constituencies under this system. The ruling party will become weaker as there are no more burnt votes
- Provides a better check on the Executive in Parliament, thus, ministerial responsibility will be upheld. When there are more opposition MPs in Parliament, everything becomes more effective.
- Easy for illiterates to vote, as they only vote based on the logo of the party.
- Vote calculation can easily be done
- Minorities will be represented fairly in the Parliament
Disadvantages
- There are no constituencies under the Party List. It destroys links between the MP and the constituents. If any problem arises, constituents will not know who to go to since no MP represents them.
- Under the Party List, the government formed may end up too weak, too unstable and cannot rule. Therefore, they may have to form a coalition government. France uses Party List and after every election a coalition government is formed. The parties there are matured enough politically to rule together. However, such system is unlikely to work in Malaysia
- Difficulty in drawing the list. It is hard to decide on who should be the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and etc. It may end up having a system where the leader of the party has the say on who should be the MP
- Voters cannot choose which candidates they want to vote for
Hybrid system
- Basically, it is the combination of one majoritarian system and one proportional system. Under the system, each voter will now have 2 votes. There are two main hybrid systems; Additional Member System (AMS) and A.V. Plus system
AMS
-AMS is the combination of FPTP and Party List system. Each voter would have two votes; one for the candidate in the constituency and another for the party of his choice on a regional basis. An equal amount of seats for constituency and Party List is put up. Whichever party with the most seats after combining the systems will become the ruling party. To illustrate, Jack votes for Bala from BN, voting by constituency and at the same time, he votes for DAP, voting by party. BN won 80 seats from constituencies and got 40% of votes (50 seats) for Party List. They become the ruling party with a majority of 130 seats.
A.V. Plus
-This system is very similar to the AMS. It was first proposed by a special commission formed in UK. Lord Jenkins proposed that AV Plus, a combination of AVS and Party List should be used. It has the exact same advantages and disadvantages with AMS.
Advantages
-A strong and stable government where people get to choose their representatives is formed
- The number of seats that the winning party wins will be reduced. This is to ensure that the opposition parties have the chance to win more seats.
-There will be more checks on the Executive by the Parliament as the Parliament is well represented.
- Voters can choose to vote for a candidate and a Party which they favour separately. For example, John can vote for Lim from PR and yet vote for BN in the Party List.
- There are still constituencies and each constituency has 1 MP. Thus, the link between MP and constituent is not broken.
Disadvantages
- Government may not be as strong and stable as in FPTP
- It is a more complicated system and it is harder to use
- More MPs will be coming from constituencies and Party List. MPs from the constituencies will probably gain more respect from the people as MPs from the Party List represents the list, not the people.
Conclusion
-Democratic states take many forms, but all have an electoral system where citizen can elect for their political leaders. There are no right or wrong answers in choosing an electoral system. There is no one perfect electoral system where everybody can agree on.
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