Millions of Malaysians are heading to the polls today in the country’s 14th General Election as Prime Minister Najib Razak takes on his 92-year-old former mentor Mahathir Mohamad.
Seeing as Malaysians who work and live here will need to travel across the borders to cast their votes, it’s for the best that Singaporeans avoid going up north to help free up traffic and ease the immigration process for voters.
Though the likelihood of Singaporean travelers causing congestion at the borders today is small (it is a working weekday after all), it wouldn’t hurt to avoid going over to Johor Bahru to ensure a smooth flow of Malaysians heading home to exercise their democratic right.
GE14
GE14 will be a crucial time for Malaysians as their current PM faces a tough test at the poll thanks to a corruption scandal surrounding state fund 1MDB, discontent over rising living costs and significant challenge from former political titan Mahathir Mohamad. Mahathir had been a mentor to PM Najib, and abandoned the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition in 2016, embarrassed by the corruption scandal.
Concerns have been raised about the fairness of the process. The weekday polling date has been labeled as unfair and something that could cause a low voter turnout. Having a low voter turnout would be beneficial for BN as they could score a landslide victory if the turnout is less than 65 percent of the electorate.
The government also recently passed a law redrawing election boundaries, producing allegations that they are ensuring that altered constituencies are filled with Malay-Muslims — typically BN supporters. A fake news law was recently introduced as well, and Mahathir faced investigations.
“This election is not just dirty, it is filthy,” Bridget Welsh, a Malaysia expert from John Cabot University, told AFP. “Najib’s insecurity is delegitimizing the electoral process.”
The immigration process
Posts have appeared on Facebook depicting the massive congestions at the Singapore-Malaysia border yesterday.
Here’s one from yesterday afternoon at the Malaysian side of the Tuas Second Link.
Here’s one from last night with a colossal crowd of people being stuck at the Sultan Iskandar Building customs complex in Johor.
Singapore’s Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) assured that there were no problems on their side at all, stating that “there are no issues with our clearance systems”.
As of writing, traffic looks pretty clear at both land checkpoints, so there shouldn’t be any problems for Malaysian voters remaining here to scoot on over to the other side.
