JOHOR BARU: Noraini Ahmad has been working in Singapore as a waitress for the past three years, earning about S$2,200 (RM7,260) a month.
The 25-year-old wakes up as early as 5.30am and travels daily to Singapore via a factory bus before returning home at about 7pm.
Her earnings help put food on her family’s table, including paying for medicines for her elderly parents.
Noraini has voted at least twice before: in the state election in March and again in the 15th General Election (GE15) in November last year.
However, this time around she did not come back to vote as she was working overtime for extra income, citing the rising cost of living in Kempas.
“Everything is expensive these days. Anyway, my parents, who are hardcore Umno members, also told me they did not plan to go and vote for Pakatan Harapan’s candidate,” she said, adding that many of her friends who were loyal Umno supporters also did not go out to vote.
Johor Umno information chief Datuk Md Jais Sarday also admitted that many Umno members did not come out to vote as they could not accept voting for Pakatan because of DAP in the equation.
“Many personally called and told me. They said they just couldn’t come out and vote. I do not blame them and commend them for just staying away instead of trying to sabotage the party by voting for Perikatan,” he said, adding that he estimated at least 30% of Umno voters did not come out to vote.
Talk is rife that voter turnout did not even touch 50% in some hardcore Malay areas such as Skudai Kiri and Perling.
Md Jais said while they had managed to stop the “green wave” from sweeping into the state, Umno could not be complacent and would need to double its efforts by going to the ground to explain to Malay voters, especially Umno members, how the unity government works and Umno’s cooperation with DAP. He felt that Perikatan was working hard to use emotions and sentiments to sway Malay voters.
On Saturday, Pakatan’s Suhaizan Kayat won the Pulai seat with an 18,641-seat majority. He got a total of 48,283 votes, while Zulkifli Jaafar from Perikatan Nasional secured 29,642 votes.
Meanwhile, in Simpang Jeram, Pakatan won with a 3,514-vote majority. Pakatan’s Nazri Abdul Rahman received 13,844 votes, while Perikatan’s Dr Mohd Mazri Yahya got 10,330 votes.
However, in the two by-elections on Saturday, voter turnout was only 47.33% for Pulai and 60.85% for Simpang Jeram.
In GE15, the turnout for the Pulai parliamentary seat was 71%, while 53.4% was recorded in the Simpang Jeram seat.
This is a huge contrast compared with the scenario in 2018 during GE14, when Pulai recorded a voter turnout of 82.9% and 85.4% for Simpang Jeram.
Political analyst Assoc Prof Dr Mazlan Ali pointed out that the low voter turnout was a cause for concern, as this had been happening since the last state elections in 2022 and also in the six state elections in August.
He pointed out Barisan Nasional and especially Umno could not be “too comfortable” about the twin wins because, despite the lower turnout, Perikatan candidates had a significant increase in votes by almost 4,000 in Simpang Jeram and almost 9,000 in Pulai.
“Not all Barisan, especially Umno members, voted for Pakatan. I believe that Pakatan won because 80% to 85% of non-Malays came out to vote for them.
“Umno members were certainly split as some voted Pakatan, some gave to Perikatan, and some did not come out to vote,” he said.
Dr Mazlan, who heads the politics and governance research group at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, said he was also worried about a last-minute swing following the recent announcement that Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had been freed from corruption charges midway through the campaign period in Johor.
Perikatan votes in these by-elections have shot up by 62% in Simpang Jeram compared to the state election in March last year and by 43% in Pulai compared with the GE15 results.
For Johor PAS commissioner Abdullah Husin, the outcome of the by-elections showed that the “green wave” had reached Johor shores.
“Yes, we lost in both places. But our votes have gone up significantly. In Pulai, the Pakatan votes even dipped by more than 16,000 votes from GE15. Maybe this time the tide was not strong enough like in the recent six state elections, but with a higher voter turnout, we will be able to win these two seats or more in Johor,” he said, adding that their candidates would continue their service to the people.
Abdullah also agreed that low voter turnout was also a worrying trend.
Now that the by-election in Johor is over, all eyes will be on the Pelangai state seat in Pahang next month.
