Former Bersih chairperson Ambiga Sreenevasan has raised concerns over whether one's vote in Malaysia is really secret after a personal encounter.

“When I was coming here this morning in my Uber, the young man who was driving said ‘what about the elections? I am a government servant and I have to vote for the ruling party’.

“He said ‘I have no choice because my vote is not secret’.

“So secrecy of the ballot is absolutely critical (to) provide safe space for people to vote freely,” she said at a function in Kuala Lumpur today.

She posed the concern as an audience member during the question-and-answer session of a panel titled "Securing Elections: Creating a Safe Environment" at a conference on the state of democracy in Southeast Asia.

It appeared that Malaysia does not have secrecy of the ballot, she said, which is a valid concern for civil servants.

“I have always assumed that ballots are secret. That may be the case but there are a lot of people who are told ‘your votes are not secret and if you vote for the opposition, we will know’.

“(Civil servants) are concerned that their jobs are at stake so we need to find a mechanism by which we can ensure secrecy of the ballot,” she said.

On Aug 25, former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad also addressed similar concerns about ballot secrecy.

Mahathir, who is also Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia chairperson, had said that the government had no way of finding out who voted for who, even if they claimed to have such information.

“(Those are) lies. If you do not believe, just ask (Bersatu supreme council member) Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman, who used to head the Election Commission (EC).

“The government does not know who voted for who, so when they say they know...(it is a) lie because there is no way they would know,” he said.

Mahathir, who is also Pakatan Harapan chairperson, had said this after advising voters that it was okay to take money or goodies from Umno-BN but to cast their votes for Harapan during the election.