BATU PAHAT: While political parties worked hard to get overseas voters, especially in Singapore, to sign up as postal voters, only 7,824 people had done so by the Feb 18 deadline.

       Of these, the talk is that 7,000 had registered in Singapore alone while the rest were from dozens of other countries.

       It is learnt that all the ballot papers for the candidates have been printed and sent out, and postal voters would need to return them so that the ballots can be included in the March 12 polls.

       As at press time, the Election Commission (EC) has yet to make public the official number of those who have registered as postal voters from overseas.

       Universiti Teknologi Malaysia political analyst Dr Mazlan Ali said that if the number of postal voters from overseas was really a mere 7,000-plus, he believed that voters were not showing an interest in the Johor election.

       “Political parties, especially those from the Opposition, worked hard to get Malaysians in Singapore to sign up as postal voters.

       “During GE14 (the 14th General Election in 2018), a large number of Malaysians in Singapore returned to vote.

       “I think without the anti-hopping laws being passed in Parliament, people have no faith in choosing or voting in this election,” he said in an interview.

       MIC vice-president Datuk M. Asojan said that he was shocked at the low number of Malaysians signing up as postal voters as the party had estimated that there were more than 100,000 voters in Singapore.

       “Maybe many of the voters who previously voted for the Opposition do not want to take part this time as they are upset with Pakatan Harapan’s rule of the state for 22 months.

       “There could also be some who don’t want to be part of this election as they do not like the hassle or they just do not trust postal voting,” he said.

       He added that despite a crowded election with multiple candidates for each seat, every vote was important, noting that some seats in Melaka were won with a mere margin of 70 votes.

       Asojan also said that voters should make use of this opportunity and come out and vote even if they were overseas.

       Johor Amanah deputy chief Dzulkefly Ahmad said he too was shocked at the low number of postal voters.

       “We now need to change our strategy and find a way to get people to use the land Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL-Land) to come back and vote.

       “We already have 10 seats that we won with less than a majority of 3,000,” he said, adding that Amanah would need to work harder to get outstation voters to return to vote,” he said.