"Boundary changes: What's in line this coming General Election? - The Straits Times 19 July 2015
For the past two months, the group of top civil servants who form the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee has been deciding on changes to the electoral map.
This traditional exercise of adjusting constituency boundaries, based broadly on population and housing shifts, is held before every general election. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, responding to questions in Parliament last Monday, said the committee started work two months ago.
Given his recommendation to the committee to lower the average size of Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs) to fewer than five MPs, GRCs are set to shrink further this time round.
With other criteria to consider - such as population changes and having at least 12 Single-Member Constituencies - analysts and political watchers are expecting there to be changes aplenty.
Since the 2011 General Election, the number of voters - citizens aged at least 21 as of Feb 1 this year - has grown to 2,460,484 as of April this year. With 87 elected MPs in Parliament now, this works out to an average of 28,000 voters per MP. Based on this number, previous committees have traditionally applied a deviation rule of 30 per cent - that was introduced in 1980 - to determine the lower and upper limits of voters each division should have. This means that each MP should represent about 20,000 to 36,000 voters.
Insight looks at how voter populations of each division have changed across Singapore, to see where the 110,000 new voters are distributed across the island. We pinpoint where the bulk of new housing developments have sprung up since 2011, to identify which wards in particular are bulging at the seams.
Insight also spoke to Members of Parliament and grassroots leaders to find out which areas make demographic or geographic sense to carve out of, or indeed cleave to, other constituencies."
Not sure if the 'electoral boundary changes' is unique to Singapore political landscape or not. Whatever it is, it is a feature here and it is better to learn to adept to it than to 'fight' it since there is no way any opposition political parties can prevail given the ruling party's dominant position in the Parliament.
Lessons for me are:
1. if the criteria are fixed and being consistently applied, it is not that bad. Even though it does, supposedly, offered an advantage to the ruling party over the opposition parties in the short term, over a long or longer term, if the ruling party is not doing the 'right things' for the MAJORITY of the voters, they will be in trouble eventually; Just a matter of when the 'change' will happen and NOT if it will happen or not!;
2. do voters really care about the 'apparent reasonableness of how the electoral boundary is organized'? While one likes to believe that the voters care about the incumbent power-that-be not use 'redrawing of the electoral boundary' as a mean to gain, so-called unfair advantage, the reality is the voters only care about WHICH political party is going to provide the bread and butter to them FIRST. Maybe some of them can afford to think and act on 'freedom of speech', 'LGBT right', etc;
3. Is it true that the GRC fortress of the PAP cannot be rely upon anymore just because of ONE breach? While the PAP person-in-charge Minister Ng Eng Hen commented that there is no need to risk any potential minister-to-be or office-holders in the Aljunied GRC, it may just be to lure the WP incumbents into complacency. With the focus of the public, and voters, being directed at the AHPETC governance and audited financial statements issues, WP is under pressure for sure. Can things change there? It will be a fierce contest for sure if the electoral boundary is left intact as in GE2011. This could be a moot point as some strategists suggest that it be broken up to 'further weaken WP'. Who knows!
Let's see ... Watch this SPACE!!
For the past two months, the group of top civil servants who form the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee has been deciding on changes to the electoral map.
This traditional exercise of adjusting constituency boundaries, based broadly on population and housing shifts, is held before every general election. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, responding to questions in Parliament last Monday, said the committee started work two months ago.
Given his recommendation to the committee to lower the average size of Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs) to fewer than five MPs, GRCs are set to shrink further this time round.
With other criteria to consider - such as population changes and having at least 12 Single-Member Constituencies - analysts and political watchers are expecting there to be changes aplenty.
Since the 2011 General Election, the number of voters - citizens aged at least 21 as of Feb 1 this year - has grown to 2,460,484 as of April this year. With 87 elected MPs in Parliament now, this works out to an average of 28,000 voters per MP. Based on this number, previous committees have traditionally applied a deviation rule of 30 per cent - that was introduced in 1980 - to determine the lower and upper limits of voters each division should have. This means that each MP should represent about 20,000 to 36,000 voters.
Insight looks at how voter populations of each division have changed across Singapore, to see where the 110,000 new voters are distributed across the island. We pinpoint where the bulk of new housing developments have sprung up since 2011, to identify which wards in particular are bulging at the seams.
Insight also spoke to Members of Parliament and grassroots leaders to find out which areas make demographic or geographic sense to carve out of, or indeed cleave to, other constituencies."
Not sure if the 'electoral boundary changes' is unique to Singapore political landscape or not. Whatever it is, it is a feature here and it is better to learn to adept to it than to 'fight' it since there is no way any opposition political parties can prevail given the ruling party's dominant position in the Parliament.
Lessons for me are:
1. if the criteria are fixed and being consistently applied, it is not that bad. Even though it does, supposedly, offered an advantage to the ruling party over the opposition parties in the short term, over a long or longer term, if the ruling party is not doing the 'right things' for the MAJORITY of the voters, they will be in trouble eventually; Just a matter of when the 'change' will happen and NOT if it will happen or not!;
2. do voters really care about the 'apparent reasonableness of how the electoral boundary is organized'? While one likes to believe that the voters care about the incumbent power-that-be not use 'redrawing of the electoral boundary' as a mean to gain, so-called unfair advantage, the reality is the voters only care about WHICH political party is going to provide the bread and butter to them FIRST. Maybe some of them can afford to think and act on 'freedom of speech', 'LGBT right', etc;
3. Is it true that the GRC fortress of the PAP cannot be rely upon anymore just because of ONE breach? While the PAP person-in-charge Minister Ng Eng Hen commented that there is no need to risk any potential minister-to-be or office-holders in the Aljunied GRC, it may just be to lure the WP incumbents into complacency. With the focus of the public, and voters, being directed at the AHPETC governance and audited financial statements issues, WP is under pressure for sure. Can things change there? It will be a fierce contest for sure if the electoral boundary is left intact as in GE2011. This could be a moot point as some strategists suggest that it be broken up to 'further weaken WP'. Who knows!
Let's see ... Watch this SPACE!!
No comments:
Post a Comment