The Bishop of West Malaysia, Archbishop Moon Hing, has added his voice to calls for Christians in Malaysia to vote wisely in tomorrow’s General Election. The 222 members of the Lower House of the Dewan Rakyat – the lower house of the country’s parliament – will be elected on Wednesday (9 May). The current ruling party, the United Malays National Organisation, has been in power for 60 years. But in a surprise move, its former leader, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who served as the country’s Prime Minister for 22 years, has joined the opposition and is seeking to reclaim his old seat at the age of 93. He has asked for forgiveness for his past mistakes, and, according to BBC News, told one young voter: “"I am already old. I haven’t much time left. I have to do some work to rebuild our country; perhaps because of mistakes I, myself, made in the past.”

Last week, the ecumenical umbrella group the Christian Federation of Malaysia, which brings together three other Christian groups, including the National Evangelical Christian Fellowship, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Malaysia, and the Council of Churches of Malaysia, which includes the country’s three Anglican Dioceses, issued a statement urging Christians to “vote wisely for a better Malaysia.”

Now, Archbishop Moon Hing has made a similar call, using a pastoral letter to urge Christians to “vote wisely and act responsibly.” He said that one of the fundamentals of the Christian faith, as revealed in Scripture, is to love our neighbours as ourselves. “When we evaluate the competing manifestos of the political parties, let us look not simply at proposed policies and ask ‘what is in it for us’, but ask instead how those policies would affect those for whom God has called us to be concerned. As a Christian community that is in a minority in this country, let us not be tempted just to protect and preserve our immediate needs and constitutional rights, but cast our minds on what is in the long-term best interest of our nation, and to seek the common good.”

In his message, he stressed that it was not the role of the Church to be politically partisan, “but it is the role of the Church to make her views known on policies that are affirming and uplifting of society, and those that are negative and degrading,” he said. “All Christians should desire that goodness and mercy follow us as a nation all the days of our lives and, as in the Lord’s Prayer, that His Will is brought about not just in heaven but on earth as well.”