General Election, 19 November 2022

Floods, November 2022  

As Malaysia’s monsoon season began, the country was hit by flash floods on 13 November, which continued until the early hours of 17 November. The floods caused landslides and blocked roads, and more than 4,000 people were displaced to temporary shelters (Azmi 2022; AFP 2022).  

Due to climate change, changes in extreme rainfall across Asia show significant regional differences. In South and East Asia, heavy rainfall events (over 100 mm per day) have been on the rise (IPCC 2022).   

Impact on the electoral process 

The incumbent Prime Minister Ismail Sabri and his party had triggered a snap election after dissolving the parliament on 10 October 2022, which drew criticism as the election would be held during the monsoon period (Chen 2022). The floods occurred amid election campaigning and less than a week before polling. Campaigns suspended planned events with voters (Taylor 2022) and instead arranged meet-and-greets with those affected. For example, the incumbent Health Minister cancelled his plans to visit a night market in the Sungai Buloh parliamentary ward and instead visit a state that was heavily impacted by the floods (Ng 2022).  

Some schools usually used as polling stations were destroyed as a result of the flash floods (Azmi 2022). On election day, voting for the Baram seat in Sarawak was postponed suspended due to the bad weather; election officials were unable to reach 11 polling stations by air, land or water for 48 hours, after which the stations reopened (Ng et al. 2022; Yeong 2022; Malaymail 2022). 

Gates at some polling centres in Selangor and Johor opened about 15 minutes earlier than scheduled to allow voters to take shelter from the rain (Ng et al. 2022). Voters were pictured queuing knee-deep in flood waters in a polling station in Kampung Long Bemang (FMT 2022). Several polling stations in the northern part of Sarawak had to relocate (FMT 2022). In Sabah, the Election Commission engaged helicopters and boats to ferry ballot boxes to and from far-away polling stations (Chan 2022). 

Voter turnout for this snap election was 73.9 per cent. Turnout for the election in 2018 was 82.3 per cent (International IDEA n.d.).