How many MPs do you want to pay for?

How big do we want to go? Are you willing to pay for at least 32 to potentially 138 more MPs, asks the writer. — Filepic/The Star

THE Dewan Rakyat had only 144 seats when Singapore left Malaysia in 1965. Forty years later, by 2005, it had increased by exactly 50% to 222 after four rounds of seat increases.

Seat increases are a political scam successfully legitimised and sold to Malaysians by politicians as something natural and necessary to meet population increase, without considering the ultimate total size of Parliament and its effectiveness.