Malaysians who voted in UK: Beware!
By Shanmuga K
An interesting aspect of the recently concluded UK elections was that Malaysians living there could also vote, since they are Commonwealth citizens. Many of them may well have done so. What they probably did not realise was that they could now lose their Malaysian citizenship as a result.
UK law allows Commonwealth citizens to vote
As Tunku Abidin Muhriz, the President of the recently formed IDEAS think tank, in his “Abiding Times” column in the Sun Our Vote in the UK pointed out:
CITIZENS of Commonwealth countries in the UK have the right to vote in local, parliamentary, and European elections: a right not extended to EU or US citizens. Thus someone from Kota Baru can vote in Newcastle, and on May 6 nearly 50,000 Malaysians – but not Indonesians or Thais – will have the chance to vote in the UK general election.
Tunku Abidin’s article is interesting in that he urged Malaysians to vote, pointing out with prescience that every vote would count, and urged a vote for the Conservative Party partly based on historic events in Britain’s history which impacted on Malaysian politics. Key events were identified where Malaysians interests seemed to suffer when it was Labour government policies that were sought to be implemented on us.
Unlike Malaysia, which disenfranchises eligible voters just because they did not register, the UK sends polling cards to anyone they think is qualified to vote. When I was studying in the UK, I received a polling card because my name was in the register of my student halls of accommodation, my university had sent that register to the local council and the local council saw that I was entitled to vote.
But Malaysian law says vote overseas and you can lose your citizenship
Now, I have the greatest respect for Tunku Abidin, but unfortunately like many Malaysians he seems not to have realised that whilst the UK lawfully allows us to vote there, Malaysia is rather more restrained in how it allows its citizens to exercise their individual freedoms.
For those Malaysian citizens who did vote in the recent elections, beware: the Home Minister now has the power to deprive you of your Malaysian citizenship.
Article 24(2) of the Federal Constitution says this:
(2) If the Federal Government is satisfied that any citizen has voluntarily claimed and exercised in any country outside the Federation any rights available to him under the law of that country, being rights accorded exclusively to its citizens, the Federal Government may by order deprive that person of his citizenship.
“Aha!”, I hear you say, “the right to vote in the UK is not a right exclusively to citizens of the UK! So how can I be deprived of my Malaysian citizenship?”
Well, Article 24(3A) provides that:
The exercise of a vote in any political election in a place outside the Federation shall be deemed to be the voluntary claim and exercise of a right available under the law of that place.
It goes on to also give a right to the government to deprive the citizenship of anyone who applies for or uses a foreign passport.
