Considering the unexpected (and sometimes unfortunate) developments in Malaysian politics since the last general election, it is understandable to be discouraged from voting in the general election this upcoming November 19, 2022.
However, if you’re on the fence about what to do, consider this Malaysian’s thoughts on why you need to vote.
In one of his latest TikTok videos, Iqbal (iqtodabal) shares insights from a Twitter thread by @Thevesh that compiled statistics of from the last three general elections in Malaysia.
Winning by a small margin
From the GE14 statistics obtained from the Election Commission, @Thevesh shows a map of the country that demonstrates all the seats in Parliament and the margin or percentage by which the candidates in those seats won by.
So, the areas in darker green are seats where candidates won by a larger percentage and the areas in lighter green are seats where candidates won by a smaller one.
“For example, in Rembau, Negeri Sembilan, Khairy Jamaluddin got 36,000 votes while his runner up got just under 32,000, meaning Khairy had a majority of more than 4,000 votes“, Iqbal explains.
“(4,000 votes is) less than 6% of the total votes that were cast in that area, which is not that big of a margin”, he added.
It is obvious that map is overwhelmingly light green in colour which means most candidates in GE14 won by a relatively smaller margin.
Non-voters > majority
At the same time, another map in red “shows the seats across Malaysia where the number of people who didn’t vote was greater than the majority that that seat was won by“.
“For example, in Kota Bharu, Kelantan, the candidate from PAS beat the candidate from Harapan by almost 6,000 votes but the seat had over 20,000 voters who didn’t show up!”
This means that those 20,000 votes could have swung the results!
“And what’s wild about this chart is, seats like the ones I mentioned aren’t the minority.”
Why you need to vote
TL;DR, your vote matters more than you think because the past election has shown that over 60% of seats had more people who didn’t turn up to vote than the number of votes that that seat was actually won by.
Imagine the difference your vote could make!
Watch the full video below:
Stay tuned for more election news and updates!
