Malaysia’s Johor state election set for March 12
KUALA LUMPUR: FEB. 9 – Malaysia’s southern Johor state will hold state-level elections to select its new government on March 12, the country’s election commission (EC) said on Wednesday.
The nomination day for candidates will be on Feb. 26, with 2,597,742 eligible voters having been listed to cast their ballot, EC Chairman Abdul Ghani Salleh told a press briefing.
This will be the third time in five months that Malaysians are going to the polls following the Melaka state election last November and the northern Borneo state of Sarawak, which held its polls last December.
The election is expected to set the stage for the 15th general election, which must be held on or before July 2023, according to Azmi Hassan, a senior research fellow at Nusantara Academy for Strategic Research.
“The Johor election comes after the lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18-years-old and automatic voter registration and political parties are eager to observe the voting trends of these new voters, who will decide the outcome in many areas,” Azmi told Xinhua in a phone interview.
“This will also be a test for newer parties like Pejuang and MUDA who are going into their first election while it will be the debut of the Sabah-state based Warisan in Peninsula Malaysia,” he said.
Besides the new parties, Azmi said it will be important to watch how United Malays National Organization (UMNO) clashes with Bersatu and PAS, two parties with which it cooperates with in the central government but who it seeks to contest against in the Johor state election.
“If UMNO manages to pull off a big win in Johor, it is very likely that instead of another state election, UMNO will push for a general election. What happens in Johor will be critical in deciding political developments at the national level,” he said.
UMNO is the lynchpin party of Barisan Nasional, a coalition that governed the country since independence in 1957 until it was defeated for the first time in the 2018 national polls.
-Xinhua
