KUALA TERENGGANU, March 5 (BERNAMA) — Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak Wednesday warned the Opposition not to prevent outstation voters to return to their hometowns to exercise their electoral rights on Saturday.
The Deputy Prime Minister said outstation voters were not phantom voters as alleged by the Opposition.
In fact, he said, the Election Commission had confirmed that they were registered voters and were eligible to vote.
“The police has taken adequate measures to ensure rule and order (on polling day). I want to clarify that outstation voters returning home to vote are not phantom voters.
“Don’t make this as an excuse to mount roadblocks (to stop them from returning home)
“They are not phantom voters as they are eligible to vote,” he told reporters after attending “settlers-with-the-leader” gathering and launching Felda Residency here Wednesday.
The press secretary to PAS president, Roslan Shahir Mohd Shahir, had said the party had received information that buses would ferry phantom voters from throughout the country including from local universities.
Najib said PAS was purposely making outstation voters as an issue for fear that they would vote for BN.
In this regard, the Deputy Prime Minister reminded opposition parties not to stir up an issue on polling day.
“In 1999, many of the returning voters did not vote for BN. PAS did not make a fuss about them then. This time, the outstation voters want to support BN, they should not complain,” he said.
Najib also advised voters not intending to cast the ballot to come out to exercise their legitimate rights in the country’s democratic process.
Based on the last election, Najib said he was satisfied with the voter turnout, as Malaysia was among the countries in the world that recorded the highest voter turnout.
“For instance, in the US, normally it’s about 50 per cent turnout to elect their president, but in Malaysia, we can get about 75 per cent overall.
“Some places have recorded 80 per cent turnout,” he added.