Malaysia’s Negeri Sembilan state heads to the polls on Saturday, but a growing portion of its young workers – and their votes – are based elsewhere.
Leaving home was never Ammar Idlan Hassan’s long-term plan, but better pay and stronger career prospects eventually drew the 27-year-old project engineer away from Seremban, the state capital.
He now lives in Gelang Patah, a border town in Johor, from which he commutes to Singapore for work. “The pay is the most obvious reason for the majority of us who chose to work elsewhere,” Ammar told This Week in Asia.
Like many of the state’s absent young voters, Ammar still thinks of Negeri Sembilan as home and is registered to vote there, despite living hundreds of kilometres away.
Just shy of 890,000 voters are registered to cast their ballots on Saturday, when 36 members of the state assembly will be elected from a crowded field of 103 candidates, with several locked in tight three-way races.