Only 6,298 overseas Malaysians have registered as postal voters
(THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) – Only 6,298 Malaysians out of over 700,000 Malaysians living abroad have registered as postal voters.
“It is quite disappointing after all that we did to provide a convenient registration process for the voters’ overseas,” Election Commissionchairman Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof said.
“The process is simple. Malaysians abroad can e-mail or fax over their particulars.
“I would have thought there would be 100,000 or even 200,000 overseas people (Malaysians) registering to vote,” he told The Star on Thursday.
He said ample time had been given from Jan 21 till the dissolution of Parliament on April 3 to register.
Tan Sri Abdul Aziz also said only 2,900 absentee voters would cast postal ballots.
Asked whether the EC’s website being down on Wednesday contributed to the low registration, Tan Sri Abdul Aziz said it was not a factor.
He also dismissed suggestions that EC regulations for overseas voters were too stringent.
“One must register as a voter and Malaysians staying abroad can be postal voters so long as they are registered as voters and had been in Malaysia for not less than 30 days in the last five years before dissolution of Parliament,” he said.
Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin said certain groups, especially electoral reforms group Bersih, had called for EC to allow overseas voting, arguing that tens of thousands of Malaysians overseas wanted to vote in the coming general election.
“The low rate of voter registration is a little bit disappointing especially when Bersih made a big issue out of it,” he said on Thursday.
Bersih steering committee member Wong Chin Huat said the poor rate was due to the late announcement of the registration of overseas voters.
Meanwhile, following the crash of its website, the EC posted on its GE13 website (http://www.pru13.gov.my/) on Thursday that Malaysians can check their voter status by calling its call centre at 03-8885 6565 or SMS SPRSEMAK IC NO and send to 15888.
