This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on April 11, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: With a weekday fixed as polling day for the 14th general election, employers will have to give their employees time off to vote.

Section 25 of the Election Offences Act 1954 requires employers to give employees a reasonable amount of time away from work to vote on polling day, without pay deduction or penalty.

Subsection 25 (1) states that: “Every employer shall, on polling day, allow to every elector in his employ a reasonable period for voting, and no employer shall make any deduction from the pay or other remuneration of any such elector or impose upon or exact from him any penalty by reason of his absence during such period.”

Employers who violate the legal provision could be fined or jailed, as per subsection 25 (3) which reads: “Any employer who, directly or indirectly, refuses, or by intimidation, undue influence, or in any other manner, interfere with the granting to any elector in his employ, of a reasonable period for voting, as in this section provides, shall on summary conviction be liable to a fine of five thousand ringgit or to imprisonment for one year,”

The Election Commission announced yesterday that Wednesday, May 9 is the polling date, while the nomination day is on Saturday, April 28.

Bersih 2.0 has called on the federal government to announce polling day as a public holiday and for state governments to declare public holidays on the day before or after polling day.

 “If this is not done, all employers should allow two days of unrecorded leave for all voters,” the electoral reform group said in a statement.

The Edge Media Group has announced that employees who are registered voters will be given the day off on May 9. Staff who are registered to vote outside Selangor and Kuala Lumpur will be given an additional day off on either May 8 or May 10 due to the travelling required to their respective polling stations.