KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 8 — Incumbent Bandar Utama assemblyman Jamaliah Jamaluddin has taken her re-election campaign for the Selangor polls to Reddit with an Ask Me Anything (AMA) thread.
With the clock ticking to polling this Saturday, the DAP politician’s post on r/malaysia, the subreddit community for all things related to the country, has received 453 upvotes and 205 comments so far.
So far, she has answered questions from Reddit users on topics such as her feelings on Pakatan Harapan (PH) and Barisan Nasional (BN) working together, the reason for choosing to run under DAP instead of other PH component parties, her favourite restaurant and so on.
She admitted that the PH-BN alliance was “unfathomable" to her at the beginning, but that it had resulted in an end to the political instability that saw the country change prime ministers three times rapidly.
“At the end of the day, democracy is about making the best choices at that time for our nation,” she said.
She also revealed that she initially volunteered for DAP because the constituency she lived in at the time was administered by the party.
“I thought I would expose myself to other parties but I decided to stick with DAP after understanding their culture and principles,” she said.
Besides that, Jamaliah, whose father is Malay and mother Chinese, said that her background as a biracial person was what got her to join politics as it taught her the beauty of diversity.
She also said it was disheartening to see people weaponise religion as a political tool.
“Therefore, I hope to use my actions as an example to show others that it doesn’t matter what race or religion we come from, we can always choose kindness first,” she said.
Jamaliah won the Bandar Utama seat in Election 2018 with a majority of 38,651 votes.
This time, she will be facing Muda’s Abe Lim as well as Gerakan’s Nur Aliff Mohd Tafid, who are both first-time candidates.
Selangor will be headed to the polls on August 12 along with Penang, Negeri Sembilan, Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu.
The six states decided against holding the state elections at the same time as GE15, citing concerns related to the annual flood season.
Today is early voting day.
