Malaysia election 2022: Overseas voters from Singapore to Hong Kong eye repeat of 2018’s massive postal ballot push
- Engaging overseas voters since the fall of the Pakatan Harapan government in 2020 has been a ‘difficult process’ but the Najib factor could reignite their enthusiasm
- Overseas postal votes are collected in each country, flown to Malaysia in the last three days of campaigning and sorted for delivery from the airport
As the chairman of the Malaysian electoral watchdog Global Bersih movement at that time, he found it difficult to accept that the group’s efforts to organise the delivery of thousands of postal votes from across the world in the watershed 2018 national polls were upended.
The coup involved a clutch of leaders from Pakatan Harapan – victors of the 2018 polls – who decided to jump ship and deny the coalition the parliamentary majority needed to remain in power.
“I stepped down (as chairman) after the ‘Sheraton Move’,” Bala told This Week In Asia, referring to the coup that was brokered by the Malay nationalist Umno party and its allies at the Sheraton Hotel on the outskirts of capital city Kuala Lumpur.
“I worked for 10 years … we all worked our guts out to push for change in Malaysia and then people like Azmin, Saifuddin, all jumped ship and that really broke the hearts of overseas Malaysians,” he said, referencing former Pakatan Harapan leaders Azmin Ali and Saifuddin Abdullah who were part of the exodus from the coalition.
