KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia closed its nationwide polls on Wednesday with an estimated voter turnout of more than 70 percent in most states.
Despite being held in midweek for the first time in Malaysia’s election history, it is estimated that 15 million registered Malaysians of all races and ethnic backgrounds came to more than 8,000 polling stations to cast their vote.
Polling stations throughout Malaysia opened at GMT 0 and closed at GMT 9 with no extension of time, according to the Election Commission (EC).
The 14th general election was reported to have run smoothly throughout the day, although there were reports of long queues, unstamped ballot tickets and a dress code issue.
The election watchdog, Bersih, stepped in and made a statement for late voters and voters standing in a long queue, “Those that are already in the queue before GMT 9 at the polling station, please ensure that you are allowed to vote after GMT 9.”
The EC started the vote-counting at the polling stations but official results of the elections will be made known from GMT 13 onward.
As the results have started to come in, Malaysians are bracing themselves on social media and at home on the possible outcome of the election.
“I’ve never refreshed a page so many times #GE14,” shared Pavitra Pillai @pavitrapillai on Twitter.
“Waiting for the #GE14 results is worse than waiting for my final exam result,” shared another Malaysian Bea @blwf98 on Twitter.
The 13th general election in 2013 saw a massive 85 percent of registered Malaysian voters turn out to exercise their rights at the polls, in which the ruling party saw its first loss in the popular vote.
The 14th general election faces the fiercest race between two political veterans, the National Front Party (BN), led by Najib Razak, and the Alliance of Hope (PH), led by Dr. Mahathir Mohamad.
Meanwhile, the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), which broke alliance with PH back in 2015, has turned to a BN-friendly party when its leader, Hadi Awang, said "PAS is open to work with BN" during the recent political campaigning.
Malaysia prides itself as a multicultural nation with the Malays as the dominant race, while the Chinese, Indians and other minorities constituted 40 percent of the country’s population.
The elections have been pulled apart by a three-corner fight between BN, PH and PAS in the polls.
After 60 years of BN rule, BN is estimated to continue its ruling by most political analysts.
Meanwhile, opposition think-tank Invoke predicted that PH may take over the next government with a thin margin. It also predicted that PAS will be wiped out in this election.
The rise of Mahathir has put a fresh face to the troubled opposition. His controversial entry as the leader of the opposition party in 2016 was a strategic move to gain the Malay votes from the ruling party.
In the final campaign speech by Mahathir on Tuesday at the Langkawi seat he is contesting, he warned Malaysians "to safeguard the nation from a culture of ‘cash is king’ by the government."
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Razak’s final campaign speech on Tuesday at his incumbent parliamentary seat in Pekan, Kedah, saw him promising election goodies such as national holidays, tax exemption and toll-free during festive seasons to Malaysians.
Razak has not been able to smooth-sail his way back to power in this election as his administration is marred by the massive Malaysia’s state development fund 1MDB corruption scandal.
It is alleged that close to USD700 million were channeled to the Malaysian prime minister's personal account through a complex web of money laundering.
