Malaysians vote in cliffhanger election as politicians say phones jammed

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysians voted on Wednesday in a cliffhanger general election.

in which Prime Minister Najib Razak’s coalition is fending off a resurgent opposition led by 92-year-old former leader Mahathir Mohamad, but is expected to squeak through to victory.

Several opposition alliance leaders and two ruling party politicians claimed their communications were being disrupted by non-stop spam calls on their mobile phones as voting progressed.

“We have lost contact with all of our polling agents,” said Lim Guan Eng, a senior leader of the opposition Democratic Action Party. “Our campaign workers are also affected. This is a dirty tech attack on us, we have been paralyzed.”

The country’s communications regulator had no immediate comment on the complaints and officials from the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) alliance did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Najib’s BN is expected to win despite an election-eve opinion poll suggesting that its support was slipping and that Mahathir’s Pakatan Harapan (Alliance of Hope) would land more votes in peninsular Malaysia, home to 80 percent of the population.

Under Malaysia’s first-past-the-post system, the party or alliance with the majority of seats in the 222-member parliament wins. Most experts believe that is within Najib’s reach despite popular anger over a multi-billion-dollar graft scandal that has dogged him since 2015 and increased costs of living.

“I think right now, it looks more favorable to BN ... however, the margin that we’re talking about is very small,” said Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman, a Malaysia scholar at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

Polling stations for the 14.9 million registered voters opened at 8:00 a.m. (0000 GMT) and will close at 5:00 p.m. (0900 GMT). The Election Commission said that after two hours of voting the turnout had been 24 percent.

Most results are expected before midnight (1600 GMT) but the count may spill into the early hours of Thursday.

“This is a big day for Malaysia as this is when we decide our future,” said cardiologist Hasri Samion at a polling station in central Kuala Lumpur. “I think the people have been complacent for too long. We need a visionary to lead Malaysia.”

Najib, casting his vote, said he was confident of victory following what he described as “quite vicious” personal attacks during the campaign.