KUALA LUMPUR: Pas president Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang's claim that the Malay voter turnout rate was lower compared to other races in the 15th General Election (GE15) is "baseless".
Political analyst Bridget Welsh of the University of Nottingham Malaysia said Malays accounted for the highest percentage of voters, according to data she collected.
"The lower voter turnout rate of the Chinese and other non-Malay ethnic groups refutes Hadi's claim," FMT quoted her as saying.
Hadi had claimed that 98 per cent of non-Muslims, including those residing abroad, voted in GE15 to "support DAP".
In an open letter to Muslims who did not vote in GE15, he claimed only 60 per cent of Muslims voted. Following that, he warned that those who did not vote might have sinned "as they had disobeyed God's command as stated by the Prophet Muhammad".
Welsh said Hadi's claims repeated his narrative about Malays as being politically threatened, adding that the claims were unsubstantiated.
Welsh cited her analysis which showed that the turnout rate of Malay voters at GE15 was 79 per cent, followed by Indian voters (78 per cent), Chinese voters (69 per cent) and other races (59 per cent).
She said that although Malay turnout was higher than that of other races, not all supported Perikatan Nasional (PN), of which Pas is a component.
"Of the Malays who did vote, only 54 per cent supported PN," she added.
Data from the Election Commission revealed that a total of 21,173,638 Malaysians voted in GE15 compared with 14,940,624 in GE14. It was largely due to the amendments to the law allowing people who are 18 and older to vote, as well as the implementation of automatic registration.
