It is our hope that on November 19, all the 21.17 million eligible voters in the country will exercise their rights and use the ballots in their hands to pick the right people who will inject a new lease of life into the country’s future!

EC chairman Abdul Ghani Salleh announced on Thursday that the polling day of the 15th general election will fall on November 19 (Saturday) while nomination is on November 5 (Saturday), with 14 days of campaigning.

Caretaker prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced the dissolution of parliament on October 10 to pave way for an early general election.

As a matter of fact, it is not too hard to fix the nomination and polling dates, but it seems that EC needed to take ten whole days to make the announcement.

His Majesty Yang di-Pertuan Agong has earlier hoped that the election would be held as soon as possible, but the November 19 polling day may likely not avert a soggy monsoon season.

The 15th general election will be using the supplementary electoral roll updated as on August 9 this year, with a total of 21,173,638 eligible voters or 6.23 million more than the 14.94 million in the last election.

These first-time voters will make up a major factor of uncertainty in the upcoming election and their voting trends will very likely affect the final outcome.

222 members of parliament will be elected in GE15, although quite many states are not going to hold their state elections concurrently. Only three states – Pahang, Perak and Perlis will have 116 state assembly seats up for grabs in this election.

Separate parliamentary and state elections would invariably bring down the voter turnout, and observers are of the view that a lower voter turnout will work in the favor of Barisan Nasional because it was the unusually high 82.32% voter turnout in 2018 that brought about the first ever change in federal administrative in the country’s history.

Unfortunately, anti-establishment sentiment is not expected to be wholly duplicated this time. None of the three major political camps – BN PN and PH have what it takes to reignite the people’s enthusiasm to go out and vote. Even if the polling day falls on a Saturday, we may not see a repeat of what took place four years ago when voters traveled back to their hometowns to vote in the middle of a working week.

The voter turnout will very likely slip back to around 70%, even if such a rate already makes many democratic countries green with envy.

Will BN benefit from such a low turnout? Let’s just wait and see!

The imminent monsoon floods could also affect the voter turnout and hence the final outcome.

Starting from next month, the northeast monsoon is expected to bring tons of rainfall to the peninsula. The Met’s historical statistics show that it is extremely rare for three east coast states of Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan not to be inundated after mid-November.

As such, PAS votes in its fortress states of Kelantan and Terengganu will likely be thinned, especially in the absence of state elections, and this is going to give BN a possible boost.

The 14 days of campaign period should be more than enough for parties to nominate and campaign for their candidates because it is still three days longer than in the last election.

But due to the decision to rush through the election before the floods arrive, the EC will only start printing the ballot papers after the nomination, and many overseas voters may not have enough time to receive and send back their postal votes. The chaos arising from postal voting in the last election is set to repeat itself this time.

Although Global Bersih has urged the EC to give at least 21 days for campaigning to make sure all overseas postal votes could be sent back in time, they are going to be disappointed again this time.

The two weeks from Thursday until November 5 nomination day will mark a crucial moment for the three major political camps to allocate the seats optimally among their component parties. There’s no point fielding more candidates in unwinnable constituencies. For example for BN, it is said that Umno is eyeing the seats of Alor Setar, Raub and Alor Gajah, although this has been denied by MCA. If in the event this rumor becomes a reality, it won’t be DAP that wipes out MCA in this election but Umno!

This election offers a good opportunity for BN’s return to the core of power, but this could change if the perception of Chinese voters is affected by BN’s unfair seat allocation.

By comparison, the component parties and allies of PH and PN have been largely able to avert such a dilemma, and 222 seats are enough to be distributed among the parties.

Some heavyweight candidates have decided not to defend their seats. For instance, Anwar Ibrahim will run in Tambun, while some DAP heavyweights are said to abandon their strongholds to make way for new blood and take up much more challenging seats themselves. Nevertheless, in light of the ebbing anti-establishment sentiment, their risky ventures may not necessarily pay off.

The nomination strategies of competing parties is at best guesswork in the run-up to the nomination day. That said, there are certain issues that warrant our concern. Among them, older faces should step aside while young professionals and female candidates will more readily strike a chord with voters.

Besides, candidates should watch their every move and speech, and should offer more constructive political views instead of talking rubbish. Of course, as the effects of social media are far-reaching, perhaps they should seriously consider the rights and needs of young first-time voters..

It is our hope that on November 19, all the 21.17 million eligible voters in the country will exercise their rights and use the ballots in their hands to pick the right people who will inject a new lease of life into the country’s future!