DAP’s Ramasamy grumbles that 9th May Polling Day helps Pakatan

(FMT) – DAP’s P. Ramasamy grumbled that the decision to hold the general election on a Wednesday instead of a day close to or during a weekend may spur more voters to come out on polling day.

He said although it is likely that the mid-week polling date was chosen to drive down voter turnout to favour Barisan Nasional (BN), the move may backfire by galvanising voters to shed their apathy, especially the youths and fence sitters.

Ramasamy said despite the outcry from opposition leaders and supporters, the mid-week polling ploy might provide the spark to motivate people to take leave.

“Just think about this, what if the whole country stops working on that day? This might just backfire. It might even give an edge to Pakatan Harapan in the election.

“There is a genuine fear (by BN) of a huge voter turnout and one way to prevent that is to have polling on a Wednesday, not Monday or Friday.

“You are trying to put as many obstacles as possible in front of Pakatan Harapan which is hoping for a high voter turnout.

“Perhaps the Election Commission should be renamed as Election Omission, as they appear to be trying to omit people from discharging their duty as voters,” Ramasamy said.

At its meeting today, the EC set May 9, a Wednesday, as the polling day for GE14 with early voting on May 5.

Nomination day is fixed on Saturday, April 28 and the campaign period is from April 28 to May 8.

Government schools in the country will be given a day off on May 9, to enable them to be used as polling centres.

EC chairman Mohd Hashim Abdullah said there were 14,940,624 registered voters. Of the total, 13,255 are early voters and 3,653 are overseas voters.