SHAH ALAM - The guessing game for the 15th General Election (GE15) dates is now over after the Election Commission (EC) announced Nov 19 as the voting day.
It involved a total of 21.17 million voters registered in Malaysia.
The EC's decision witnessed the first time GE15 took place involving 222 Parliamentary seats and 117 state seats out of 536 State Assemblies.
This time also saw a total of six states led by the Pakatan Harapan (PH) and Pas government which rejected the decision for simultaneous State Elections (SE) with GE15 where only three states – Perak, Perlis and Pahang - including the Bugaya by-election in Sabah.
Previously, many political observers forecasted that the election would fall between Nov 1 and Nov 10 to avoid the monsoon season.
This was due to Malaysian Meteorology Department's (MetMalaysia) prediction of four to six episodes of continuous heavy rains that signified floods coming during the active phases of the Northeast Monsoon from November 2022 to January 2023.
Following that, the question was could the EC and the government ensure the important democratic process of the country goes smoothly without being affected by the threats of floods?
Former EC chairman Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman explained the main factor Nov 19 was chosen was the commission did not have many options.
Rashid said the EC was forced to set the special meeting to discuss the dates for GE15 on Oct 20, much later than usual following the need for the official dissolution of state assemblies of each state.
"Previously, the administration of the central and state government was parallel, when the election wants to be implemented, the EC usually had been informed in the announcement of the government dissolving the Parliament much earlier.
"The EC would then go to each state to discuss the dates for each state assembly to ease the commission’s decision for a suitable date for GE15.
"I sympathise with the EC because they are forced to go through difficult matters outside of their control following the problems of the central government administration and the non-simultaneous states.
"The EC then was forced to announce the later election date than usual because they awaited the confirmation of the final decision of the dissolution of each state assemblies beforehand," Rashid explained to Sinar Premium.
Rashid believes that the second factor of the EC choosing the middle of November was for the decision in line with MetMalaysia with the monsoon and for a GE15 where the flood risks are at a minimum.
The flood prediction during GE15 if it becomes the reality the Elections Regulations (Proceedings of Elections) 1981 under the EC Act gave power to the EC to close the voting centres involved in floods and delay voting to another date.
"The choice of the other date to vote must not be more than 60 days after the dissolution of Parliament and if this issue happens the GE15 decision as a whole must be delayed.
"The question of safety and election voting secrecy kept by the EC, voters and political parties should not be worried because it is well maintained in special localities that are ensured its secrecy," Rashid said.
The EC announcement had set two other important dates which were the naming of candidates on Nov 5, and the voting on Saturday must be welcomed by all parties.
It was different from GE14 where the voting dates set was on Wednesday, the chance to vote was set on Saturday was hoped to increase the voter turnout to over 84 per cent as how GE13 did when it was held on Sunday.
"Therefore the political parties’ challenges are now finding ways to build momentum for the percentage of voters to be increased to over 80 per cent with many voters given the awareness to participate.
"The principles of 'the facility to vote' must be made as the base from the government, the EC and political parties in helping the process of voter turnout to be smoother.
"For schools that are too packed with entrances are less suitable or exposed to floods, the provision of additional voting centre facilities needs to be expanded," said Institut Darul Ehsan (IDE) Senior Research Manager Khairul Arifin Mohd Munir.
Political analyst from Sunway University Professor Dr Wong Chin Huat said he was disappointed when the EC had not shown any standard operating procedure (SOP) if the voters were trapped in temporary evacuation centres for flood victims in GE15.
"The EC and National Disaster Management Agency (Nadma) needed to be responsible in making the preparation and informing the contingency plan to the people if the voting centre and the voter's home is flooded.
"I urge the government to ensure the EC representative inserted into the State Disaster Management Committee considering they could not be presumed that a major flood would not cripple the election in their states later," he stated.