SMU Associate Professor of Law Eugene Tan commented on the suggestion by human rights activist group MARUAH to remove the current group representation constituency (GRC) system in which groups of candidates, rather than individual candidates, get elected as in the all-single member constituency (SMC) electoral system. Associate Prof Tan said that he was not persuaded that the approach would work better in ensuring adequate ethnic minority representation in Parliament than the way the GRC system currently does, as the proposed alternative presents similar problems. "The main difficulty I have with (MARUAH's plan) is that when the protective mechanism is triggered, the ethnic minority candidates elected would be seen as 'best losers' first," Associate Prof Tan said, noting that this would not help the cause of minority race MPs. " It would reinforce the impression or give rise to the perception that ethnic minority candidates are not electable," he added.