This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on April 12, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: The government has declared May 9, the polling day for the 14th general election (GE14), a national public holiday.

The Prime Minister’s Office said this would enable citizens to exercise their responsibility as voters following the Election Commission’s (EC) announcement of the date for polling, Bernama reported.

“The declaration on the public holiday is made based on Section 8 of the Public Holidays Act 1951 for Peninsular Malaysia and the Labuan Federal Territory,” it said in a statement.

For Sabah and Sarawak, it said, the respective state governments would have to declare the date a public holiday based on their respective state holidays ordinance, Bernama reported.

In Kota Baru, Umno information chief Tan Sri Annuar Musa said the EC’s decision to set the polling date on a weekday is not expected to affect voter turnout.

“I think there will be no effect on voters ... The Malaysian election history would show we have had elections on all days except for Friday,” Annuar told reporters during a visit by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak here yesterday.

“Secondly, the polling process only takes a while. Only voters from out of town would be slightly affected [and only] if they are really far away [from their constituencies],” added Annuar, who is largely expected to contest for Barisan Nasional in the Ketereh parliamentary seat.

Malaysia had three GEs with polling held on weekdays: April 22 to April 25, 1982 (Thursday to Monday), April 24 and April 25, 1995 (Monday and Tuesday), and Nov 25, 1999 (Monday) — declared a public holiday by then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

In the 1999 GE, the average voter turnout was 69.3%. In the 1995 elections, voter turnout was 68.3%.

Voter turnout when the elections were held during weekends ranged from 72.3% in 1990 to 84.8% in 2013.