Should Malaysia Adopt a New Electoral System?

Penang Institute in collaboration with ENGAGE are proud to bring you this two-day workshop on electoral system and party system. As a nation, we inherited the First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) electoral system from the British. With the momentous change in Government at the 14th General Election, we want to explore the different electoral systems available around the world and consider their viability for Malaysia.

The Speaker
Dr Wong Chin Huat is fellow at Penang Institute and resource person at the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections 2.0 (Bersih 2.0). A Chevening scholar, his doctoral thesis in University of Essex was on the electoral system and party system in West Malaysia, 1982-2004. He long predicted that Malaysia will not have a two-party system with merely an end of Barisan Nasional's rule.

Programme

14 November 2018 (Wednesday)

7:00pm: Registration

7:30pm: A conceptual introduction on electoral system and representative democracy

8:30pm: Mock elections in 4 majoritarian electoral systems

a. First-Past-The-Post (UK)
b. Alternative Vote (Australia)
c. Two Round System ( France)
d. Party Block Votes (Singapore, locally known as Group Representation Constituency)
10:30pm: End

15 November 2018 (Thursday)

7:00pm: Registration

7:30pm: Mock elections in 4 Proportional and Semi-proportional electoral systems

e. Single Transferable Votes (Ireland)
f. Party-List Proportional Representation (Indonesia, Hong Kong)
g. Mixed Member Proportional (Germany, New Zealand)
h. Mixed Member Majoritarian (Japan, Korea, Taiwan)

9:30pm: A Critique of Malaysia's FPTP and Permanent Coalition model

10:30pm: End

Note

*Full attendance is strongly advised to avoid unnecessary revisit to previous discussions in an extremely-packed course

*Coffee and tea is provided