What does the EBRC look at when it starts its work?
The first thing to remember is that the EBRC is more like a mechanism that has been passed down through the decades and not based on anything in the books. Nothing is said in the laws about when it should start or end work or who should sit on them.
The announcement of its set-up is usually brief, with the same portfolio holders forming the committee, that is, the Cabinet secretary who will chair it, the Chief Statistician, heads of the Singapore Land Authority, Housing Board and Elections Department.
Its parameters are set down by the Prime Minister of the day who uses his powers according to Section 8 of the Parliamentary Elections Act. Despite being very short, every word is pored over because it can indicate his thinking of the electoral playing field. More of fewer GRCs, smaller or bigger? More SMCs?
PM Lawrence Wong has said that he would like the EBRC to stick more or less to the status quo. Of course, this doesn’t mean the current boundaries will stay because of the other parameter: The Committee should take into consideration significant changes in the number of electors in the current electoral divisions as a result of population shifts and housing developments.
In the last EBRC report, the committee said that it would follow the usual practice of work on a range of 20,000 to 38,000 electors per MP (based on a ±30% variation). So the average number is 27,900.
It added this: “The Committee was also mindful that Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs) with fewer MPs should not have more electors than GRCs with more MPs.
Constitutional law experts like Kevin Tan are uneasy about such a big margin of deviation. It means, among other things, that smaller electoral divisions have bigger power – because fewer of them are needed to send someone into Parliament.
One example on the single-member constituency front would be the 18,551 voters in Potong Pasir, which actually fell below the 20,000 threshold. In a straight fight, just a little more than 9,000 of them would get their man/woman in. (The ward will have no problem now because it has ballooned to 31,268, according to 2024 electoral roll. You can even say it is ripe for carving.)
On the other hand, Bukit Panjang had 35,285 voters to one MP, which means more than 15,000 voters have to cast their vote for one person in a one-on-one showdown (The number has been reduced to 33,518).
The GRC front is a lot more complicated because it is cut into four or five electoral divisions. It actually makes it possible for a six-member GRC (the limit under the law) to balloon to 228,000 voters!
In GE2020, the smallest four-member GRC was Bishan-Toa Payoh at 100,036 voters. It has shrunk even further.
Of the 11 five-member GRCs, Ang Mo Kio (led by former PM Lee Hsien Loong) is in the lead with 180,186 voters. It’s actually grown even bigger in size – 188,820.
Given that the last EBRC said that GRCs with fewer MPs should not have more electors than GRCs with more MPs, it looks like some wards are due for a trimming.
Sengkang with four MPs, for example, has overtaken the number of voters in five-MP East Coast. See https://chinchai.com/2
Doubtless, mathematical calculations are less interesting than the geographical spread of constituencies. How the EBRC decides to slice the pie, and which parts into how many big or small pieces is a big blank that has been filled with conspiracy theories since Anson was wiped off the map for GE1988.
Eyes are now on the constituencies where the opposition made the most inroads or close to winning. The cynicism level is rising with expectations that such wards would be dismembered or absorbed.
The Government has always insisted that the EBRC was formed to serve the interest of voters and not political parties and comprised professional civil servants who worked independently. Putting them under the spotlight would risk their professional work being “compromised’’ by political or public pressure.
In August last year, Progress Singapore Party tried and failed to pass a resolution to review the EBRC process which should, it said, be chaired by a High Court judge. It was a valiant process with its NCMPs stopping just short of outright charges of gerrymandering.
Among other things, it suggested that one MP should represent 30,000 voters, with a deviation of plus or minus 10 per cent, such that each MP represents 27,000 to 33,000 voters. This, it argued, would ensure that both an MP’s workload and the citizen’s voting power are more equitably distributed. In other words, the election should be conducted fairly.
But it appears that pragmatism – even if politics is not factored in the equation – is the topmost consideration. The frontbench reply was that a change would lead to more frequent and drastic changes to boundaries here, due to the high rate of voters moving and changing their addresses within the country.
A proper explanation of the ratio of MP to electors and the margin of deviation, which was set in the 80s, would have added more light to this tricky issue. But the Government chose to take the moral high ground of not letting “politics’’ get in the way of what is really a political issue concerning all voters and not just political parties.
Its only concession this time round was to announce the formation of the EBRC on the same day it is convened.
See: https://berthahenson.wordpress.com/2024/08/22/gerrymandering-is-how-you-define-it/
Bertha Harian 
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