SEREMBAN: The voter turnout for the 15th General Election is expected to be as high as the 2018 polls, says Parti Amanah Negara president Mohamad Sabu.
He said voters would turn out in full force as the anti-party hopping law has been passed by Parliament which will make it an offence for elected representatives to jump ship.
Mohamad said that people's faith in the justice system has also been strengthened following recent court decisions.
"In the Melaka and Johor state elections, most of those who went out to vote were Umno supporters,” he added.
"Many who voted for Pakatan Harapan in 2018 didn't vote in the two state elections because they were disappointed when our government collapsed after some MPs defected (following the Sheraton Move)," said Mohamad.
The voter turnout for the 2018 polls was 82.3%.
Mohamad said the findings by a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) set up to investigate Lembaga Tabung Haji’s management and operational issues from 2014 to 2020 would also be revealed soon and this would appease voters as action would be taken against those responsible.
The RCI aims to determine if the statutory body carried out its mandate professionally in managing the deposits of Muslims.
On a different topic, Mohamad said that he agrees with former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who had said that PAS members should also be branded a party of infidels for agreeing to work with Umno.
The Kota Raja MP said he agrees with the Parti Pejuang Tanah Air chairman as PAS president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang had previously branded Umno a party of infidels but now chose to work with the latter.
I feel sorry for the PAS president as he keeps changing his thoughts every week and we will not know what he is going to say next week,” said Mohamad.
On Friday (Sept 16), Dr Mahathir had said PAS was a party of 'infidels' following its move to cooperate with Umno and non-Muslim parties.
Dr Mahathir also said that Abdul Hadi has never retracted the remark he made in the past, labelling those who were not with the party as “infidels”.
Meanwhile, Amanah communications director Khalid Abdul Samad said PAS always uses religion to win support from the people.
"In terms of performance, how well have they done in Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu and how well have their ministers performed.
"The only capital they have is to brand everyone as kafir (infidel), unIslamic or people with no morals," he added, saying that PAS actually hardly practised what they preached.
In a Facebook post on Thursday (Sept 15), Abdul Hadi had also said that many of Pakatan's leaders were openly "non-believers and immoral".
He among others said Pakatan was not capable of doing justice to all the people, despite the coalition having component parties that use "keadilan" (justice) and "amanah" (trust) in their name.
