The government today managed to amass the necessary two-third majority vote to amend the federal constitution to adopt the new electoral boundaries that will see an additional 25 parliamentary seats to the existing 194.

House speaker Dr Mohamed Zahir Ismail announced at about 7pm that the amendment bill was passed with 149 votes against 34.

However the House rejected by 149 votes an additional amendment proposed by Mustafa Ali (PAS-Dungun) to add another nine parliamentary seats to the 25 proposed by the government.

Mustafa had submitted his motion for the amendment to the speaker last Thursday and wanted additional seats in Kedah (2), Kelantan (2), Terengganu (2), Perlis (1), Melaka (1) and Wilayah Persekutuan (1).

"We just want a fair redelineation. We didn't ask for a reduction to the proposed allocations but we want other states to be treated fairly as well by being given additional seats too," Mustafa told the House.

PM presents bill

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad turned up at the Dewan Rakyat sitting to table the constitution amendment bill.

The bill is to amend Article 46 of the federal constitution to add 25 new parliamentary seats and 63 state seats. These seats were introduced by the Election Commission in its latest redelineation exercise which ended last year.

An amendment to the election laws was also passed last April year to incorporate this and few other changes introduced by the EC. As the status of parliamentary seats are subject to the federal constitution, it is thus necessary to amend the constitution to formalise these changes.

The move to these amendments have been criticised by the opposition which claimed that it did not reflect a fair distribution of seats nationwide.

Under the new amendments, the states that are allotted the largest number of new seats are Johor, Selangor and Sabah while others such as Perlis, Kelantan, Terengganu and Kedah did not receive any new allocation. (Refer to chart)

Of these states, Kelantan and Terengganu are under the control of opposition PAS, and the Muslim-based party believes that it could do well in Kedah and Selangor in the next general election.

"There is no new allocation for Perlis, Kelantan, Terengganu and Kedah because EC was of the opinion the current seats allocation for these states are enough," Mahathir told the Dewan Rakyat.

"The impact of this redelineation is that the electoral boundaries - which previously are at great distances resulting the members of parliament having difficulty to visit the people - have now been resolved."

He added that the elected representatives can now perform their duties better for all their constituents.

"Similarly, small electoral boundaries but with a large number of voters have been reduced in the redelineation plan," the premier said.

Opposition protest

The bill was seconded by Housing and Local Government Minister and Pontian MP Ong Ka Ting.

Speaking to reporters later in a press conference, Mahathir said BN would still be able to win in the election even if the proposed amendments had not taken place.

During the debate on the bill later, oppositions parliamentarians voiced their strong objections against the bill.

Keadilan president and Pematang Pauh MP Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said the constitution should not be amended hastily before a full-scale consultation were carried out on the new electoral boundaries.