KUCHING, March 13 — Barisan Nasional’s (BN) landslide victory in the Johor state election yesterday was a manifestation of the people’s anger over Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) inability to govern the country, opined Dato Sri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar.
The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Parliament and Law) believed that PH’s failure to govern the country has made people to believe that only BN is capable of leading the government.
“PH were given the opportunity to govern the country for 22 months after the 14th General Election in 2018 and they just could not do it.
“Thus, the people are now voting for a party that they believe can govern the country well,” the Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS) lawmaker said after attending the ‘Mesra Bersama Rakyat’ Programme event in Kampung Tanjung Bako here today.
Wan Junaidi, who is Santubong MP, said prior to this, the anger of the people towards PH was previously translated during the Melaka state election and then the Sarawak state election.
Meanwhile, when asked on Undi 18 which was implemented for the first time in the country during the Johor state election yesterday, Wan Junaidi said the Election Commission (EC) is conducting a postmortem to examine the issues that arose during the state election.
“Now, we don’t know yet what the main problems are facing voters between the aged 18 and 20 who were voting for the first time. I also heard that they were having problems with the residence address with the address registered in the identity card.
“If that is the problem that prevented the young voters from voting, they should change the address in their identity card if they changed their place of residence because the exchange of information will automatically be channelled by the National Registration Department to the EC online,” he said.
Commenting on the complains by some quarters who lamented that some polling stations were closed earlier before 5pm during the Johor state election, Wan Junaidi said that the EC did not make a mistake in doing so, as it was done in accordance with the gazetted ruling.
According to him, the opening and closing times of each polling station have been gazetted and it has been informed to all parties, including the candidates contesting.
Hence, he said there is no issue of the EC committing illegal actions when closing the polling station earlier.
“Like the claim of a disgruntled woman when a polling station closed at 2pm, she should have understood that the closing time had indeed been gazetted.
“The polling station has only 170 voters and is gazetted to close at 2pm. When the time comes, the fence is closed and it will not be able to reopen even if there are new voters arriving outside the fence,” he added.
Wan Junaidi believed that the EC has carried out their duties and responsibilities based on the gazetted ruling and those who made the allegation need to study the gazetted rules before lodging a police report on the issue. — Borneo Post
