Barisan Nasional Supreme Council has degenerated from Federal coalition government’s highest decision-making body into a superfluous and even super-annuated creature without any bite, role, authority or purpose whatsoever

Nobody is impressed with the Barisan Nasional Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor’s announcement that the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council will meet on Friday to discuss the Election Commission’s (EC) proposed redelineation exercise.

This is because the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council has degenerated from the Barisan Nasional Federal coalition government’s highest decision-making body into a superfluous and even superannuated creature without any bite, role, authority or purpose whatsoever.

It has followed the footsteps of the Cabinet to become an utterly toothless, purposeless and irrelevant body.

Despite protestations and denials by the EC Chairman, Datuk Mohd Hashim Abdullah that the constituency redelineation exercise was being carried out for the benefit of certain parties, nobody believes that the Election Commission would dare to propose the most unconstitutional, blatant and flagrant constituency redelineation proposals – the most undemocratic of all five redelineation exercises in the nation’s history – without “greenlight” from the highest “political strategists” in the corridors of power in Putrajaya (which do not include anyone from outside UMNO)!

Mohd Hashim’s protestation and denials lack credibility or conviction, for the EC Chairman is unable to explain why he had jettisoned his predecessor, Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof’s previous redelineation plan to abide by the Constitution and the democratic principle of “one man, one vote” by ensuring that there will be no super-size parliamentary constituencies exceeding 100,000 votes.

Is the EC Chairman prepared to make public the redelineation proposals drafted under the Chairmanship of Abdul Aziz which is based on the principle that there will be no super-size parliamentary constituencies exceeding 100,000 votes?

Or for that matter, is the EC Chairman prepared to reveal how many sets of redelineation proposals had been considered by the Election Commission before the EC announced the redelineation proposals as the basis of its constituency delimitation exercise on the eve of Malaysia Day on 15th Sept and to make public all the redelineations proposals considered by the EC under the previous and present EC Chairman?

The BN Supreme Council meeting on Friday will be superfluous and irrelevant as none of the leaders from the 13 non-UMNO parties in the Barisan Nasional would dare to demand that the EC make public all the constituency redelineation proposals which had been considered by the EC – including the one referred to by Abdul Aziz to redelineate constituencies to ensure that there will be no super-size constituencies exceeding 100,000 voters – to demonstrate that the EC had acted in a responsible, transparent, democratic and constitutional manner.

MCA and Gerakan have expressed their opposition towards the EC’s redelineation proposals, but do they really matter as their leaders have along abandoned the important “consensus” principle in Barisan Nasional and accepted a subsidiary and subordinate role in the Barisan Nasional coalitio .

In fact, MCA and Gerakan leaders had not dared to even requisition for an emergency meeting of the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council when UMNO Ministers unilaterally fast-tracked the PAS President’s private member’s bill in Parliament in May which violated the 43-year Barisan Nasional stand and consensus that PAS’ hudud proposal was not appropriate for Malaysia’s plural society and against the fundamental provisions of the 1957 Merdeka Constitution and 1963 Malaysia Agreement.

Although MCA and Gerakan leaders have promised in the recent Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar by-elections that the Barisan Nasional “consensus” will be restored, will MCA, Gerakan and the other BN component parties especially from Sabah and Sarawak ensure that the BN Supreme Council decide on Friday that there will be no repeat in Parliament of what happened in May to fast-track the PAS President’s private member’s bill motion unless there is approval by all the 14 BN component parties?