The Tamesis
February 23, 2026
Petaling Jaya – Malaysia’s parliamentary seats have remained at 222 since 2008, when the country had a population of about 27 million and more than 10.9 million registered voters.
According to the Department of Statistics, Malaysia currently has approximately 34.3 million people.
Graphics: Star
The Star’s analysis of 2022 election data for 222 parliamentary seats shows that 86 of them have more than 100,000 voters.
That being the case, especially with the number of voters registered with the Electoral Commission (EC) as of December 2025 at 22.06 million, should more seats be created through redistricting?
Also read: Electoral Commission can review electoral boundaries every eight years
Among these seats with more than 100,000 voters, 7 seats have more than 200,000 voters, with Bangi in Selangor having the largest number of voters, with more than 300,000.
Electoral analyst G. Manimaran said ideally, a constituency should have between 60,000 and 100,000 voters as this number would ensure fairly fair representation.
“If we draw the formula used in the exercise on the basis of population size and the second, third, fourth and fifth redrawings, then the Election Commission should increase the number of seats by at least 15-20 per cent of the current number,” he said.
“Currently, we have about 50 constituencies with less than 60,000 voters, and most of them have less than 50,000 voters. Meanwhile, Bangi is estimated to have more than 300,000 voters.”
The difference in voters in a seat also varies based on population density and district size, he said.
“For example, the number of voters in Kinabatangan, Gua Musang and Pantai Valley seats varies depending on the level of development, size and existing population of the facilities,” he said.
“Another example is the Tuaran seat in Sabah, which is said to be five times larger than Perlis state, which has three parliamentary seats.
“Perlis has an area of 819 square kilometers and Tuaran has an area of 1,166 square kilometers.
“The EC will need to consider aspects such as area size, population density and existing facilities when considering the process of redrawing constituencies.”
Also read: Oversized constituencies limit MPs’ influence
Mohamed Faisal Abdul Aziz, chairman of the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih), said the number of parliamentary seats remained unchanged despite the country’s significant population growth.
“In contrast, the redistricting efforts conducted in 2018 were primarily focused on realigning electoral boundary lines rather than increasing the number of districts.”
He said a review of electoral boundaries was crucial because of the huge differences in voter numbers between constituencies.
“For example, the number of voters in Bangi constituency during the 2022 general election is 303,430.
“In comparison, Sabah Annan has only 51,609 voters,” said Mohammad Faisal.
“This raises the question of whether such a difference is constitutional as Section 2(c) of Part 1 of the 13th Schedule of the Federal Constitution provides that the number of electors in each constituency in the state shall be approximately equal, unless greater difficulties in attracting voters in rural areas and other difficulties encountered in rural constituencies may justify weighting measures.”
However, access and communication challenges for rural voters have been significantly reduced given the development of rural infrastructure, including improved road networks and modern communication systems, he added.
“Therefore, the gap between Sabah Annan and Bangi is approximately 1:6, and such a gap may no longer be justified.”
He said that with the implementation of automatic voter registration and Undi18, the number of voters increased by 40%, so the projections showed an increasingly uneven ratio of voters to constituencies in different regions.
Also read: MPs say seats should be redistributed to address voter imbalance
“The unequal voter ratio is expected to worsen in Kedah, Kelantan, Terengganu, Penang, Perak, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Negeri Sembilan, Johor and Sabah.”
Mohammad Faisal said the constituencies needed to be redrawn due to their size.
“Some wards cover two councils. This makes it difficult for councilors to deal with administrative issues, especially when it comes to constituent complaints about basic facilities,” he said.
On March 9, it will be eight years since the electoral boundaries of Peninsular Malaysia were last redrawn. (February 2025 for Sabah and August 21, 2023 for Sarawak).
The European Commission has yet to take a formal decision on redrawing electoral boundaries.
European Commission Vice President Dr. Azmi Shalom said in an interview that while the eight-year period establishes the earliest start date for the exercises, it does not mandate that the exercises must begin then.
“That will be decided by the European Commission when we meet. But if you look at Schedule 13 of the Federal Constitution, it basically sets out the criteria. It’s very broad.”
