Malaysian working in Beijing heroically helps students get their GE15 votes in

BEIJING: Thinking smart about how to aid Malaysian students in Beijing get their postal ballots back to the Election Commission (EC) before GE15’s 5pm deadline on Nov 19, Chua Guat Hong, 29, rallied her friends to help.

The Malaysian, who works in a private company and has lived in the Chinese capital for 11 years, said the ballots were only received via a delivery company at about 5pm on Wednesday.

Taking matters into her own hands, she and her six friends organised an Amazing Racelike operation to ensure that they and some 100 students from Beijing Normal University, Peking University and Tsinghua University would not miss the chance to determine the future of Malaysia.

It was not easy because there were tight Covid-19 restrictions and the students were not allowed to leave their campus, while security guards also denied Chua and her friends entry.

“Believe it or not, all the postal ballots were tested for the Covid19 virus. It’s the procedure for all overseas mail. The students were overjoyed to see me and thanked me for helping them fulfil their responsibility to vote,” said Chua from Batu Pahat, Johor who is a first-time voter.

She said that a WeChat group called ‘GE15Beijing’ was created to aid communication and distribution, and that the marked ballots would be sent to Malaysia via courier. Although exhausted having worked till midnight to get the job done, Chua was happy that she was able to help the students. — Bernama