How do we stop 'undemocratic' multi-cornered fights?

The local political scene has become so heated and intense that there has been more seat squabbling and horse trading than normal.

And naturally, this saw the emergence of plenty of independents and in turn, multi-corner fights when nomination ended Saturday.

According to political scientist Wong Chin Huat, the current climate of the crucial 13th General Election has made ‘winnability’ of candidates the priority more than anything before.

“Central and national decisions overwrite the views of the local leaders. The problem with winability is that it is subjective, hard to examine and often lead to arbitrary decisions. How do you know if someone is winnable?”

Wong, a fellow at think tank Penang Institute and activist as well as a key member of electoral reform group Bersih 2.0, attributed the disputes over candidates to the electoral system and party system.

He said that there was always a question of “what if” when a “better” candidate is picked on whether it was the “right decision”.

“These decisions opens up a lot of quarrels,” he said.

Wong felt that candidacy selection should be bottom-up and not top down.

But he noted that bottom-up candidate selection is not compatible with the First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) electoral system and permanent coalition.

FPTP system of elections means that you can only have one winner in one constituency. When you have permanent coalition, only one component party can run in one constituency.

This justifies the need for centralised decision in candidate selection, he said.

Wong said, in comparison, in UK which has FPTP electoral system but no permanent coalition, parties can contestin whichever seats they want.

The coalition government, if any, would only be formed after elections is over, he explained.

Since the multi-ethnic nature of Malaysian politics necessitates coalition politics, Wong suggested for Malaysia to consider a system other than the ‘first past the post’(FPTP) voting method.

Wong urged the Malaysian public to consider adopting the German voting system where each voter will have two votes and the parliament consists of two groups of MPs-- constituency MPs who represent their constituencies and party list MPs who represent their parties.

“Hence, you have one vote to give to your preferred candidate as the local representative and another vote to give to your preferred party,” he said.

“When you have such an unrestricted election, the selection of candidates can therefore be more democratic.

“Let’s say if MCA switches seats with Umno and it runs in Lembah Pantai, what do you do? Would Umno then be forced to find a replacement seat in Bukit Bintang? That means that Bukit Bintang has no full say on who should be running.

“With the FPTP system, political coalitions have no choice, therefore you have these quarrels,” he said.

Explaining the German system further, Wong said that the percentage of party votes will determine the total number of parliamentarians a party should have. For example, if the Parliament has 200 seats, with 100 representing constituencies and 100 appointed from party lists.

"Suppose Party X has got 30% of party votes, it should have 60 seats in total, and if it has won 25 constituencies, the first 35 names on its party list of candidates will be elected to Parliament." he explained.

Since all parties can compete for party votes, the component parties are therefore allowed to compete for each other.

This will partially take away quarrel between component parties over total number of seats allocated. The more popular a party, the more seats it will get, he said.

The parties' shares in the "party vote" in a constituency can perhaps be used as a guide to decide which party should contest in the local constituency for next elections.

"Centralised decision will be unnecessary then. This will take away a big part of the disputes." said Wong.

Party headquarters can determine the candidates for "party list" and their sequence in the list. This would allow the parties to draw in new bloods without parachuting new faces to constituency.

Wong suggested that Malaysia can also consider primary, either as a complement or a substitute to the German electoral system.

"Who should represent a coalition in a constituency can perhaps be determined by all members of the coalition's component parties in a preliminary election, as in the US and a number of European parties."

"The point is once you have cut-and-dry rules in determining candidates, there will be no room for disputes and the losers will have no legitimate ground to play spoilers."

“Prior to 2008, there were many constituencies which opposition do not stand a chance. Now, most seats can possibly be won by either coalitions. This lead to a phenomenal growth in the number of constituencies, and with it, disputes and bickering." said Wong.

"Since the old system can no longer work for such a new political landscape, politicians and the public must seriously think about reforms in electoral system - not just the voting process - and candidate selection mechanism after this elections."