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| Parliamentary constituencies of Malaysia. (The Star Online) |
A recent article on British daily The Guardian warned that democracy in the United Kingdom is in "terminal
decline". Citing a study by research group Democratic Audit, the paper reports
that unrepresentative politicians and indifferent voters are contributing to
the decline of the democratic process in Britain. And these issues relate to a
fundamental principle in representative democracy – the concept of one person,
one vote.
Fortunately in Malaysia, voters are far from
indifferent. Voter turnout has been near consistently upwards of 70% since at
least 1982. However, as electoral reform advocates have pointed out before,
while voters do their part by voting, the electoral system is inherently
unrepresentative of the voters.
