More parties in Johor polls may cause voter confusion

SHAH ALAM - The emergence of new political parties contesting in the Johor state election would offer voters more options to choose from.

Political analyst Amir Fareed Rahim said there has been a shift in the political landscape compared to the common one-on-one party contesting that could be seen from the past two election cycles.

He said this had made the Johor state election very interesting but rather much harder for political analysts to keep track on all the parties in the race to win the hearts of the people.

“In the past two election cycles, we have seen one-on-one party contesting such as Barisan National (BN) vs Pakatan Harapan (PH) for example. But now this pattern is shifting, it is not very clear anymore.

“It is definitely very different from 2018 (14th General Election ) and we are experiencing that surge in democratic participation in terms of the number of political parties,” he said during the Wacana English Edition entitled "Johor polls: Emergence of a new power?", last night.

According to Amir, the implication of the shift to the voters was that there would be more choices that they needed to consider before deciding who to vote for as leaders during the election.

However, he said this could also cause confusion since it was hard for the people to keep up with the political parties and their manifesto and what they can offer to the people.

“More political parties can be very confusing for the people, therefore the political parties need to introduce themselves to the voters and have a clear platform and manifesto to show their overall narrative on what they are offering,” he said.