As with past general elections, Malaysiakini will be bringing down its paywall for the next two weeks, beginning today.

Non-subscribers will be able to access all Malaysiakini news reports and opinion pieces by simply registering their e-mail addresses here. For Malaysiakini subscribers, an extra 14 days will be added to their existing subscriptions.

“We know voters will be relying on Malaysiakini as a source of independent news so we are more than happy to make Malaysiakini available, free-of-charge, to everybody during this intense period,” Malaysiakini CEO Premesh Chandran said.

According to Google Analytics, eight million readers have accessed over 140 million page views on Malaysiakini so far this month.

For KiniTV, a total of 3.5 million viewers have clocked over 20 million video views.

Beyond the direct readership, Malaysiakini stories and KiniTV clips are also widely shared on WhatsApp and e-mail groups, multiplying Malaysiakini’s already broad reach.

“Over the past few weeks, traffic to Malaysiakini increased tremendously as the countdown to GE14 began after the dissolution of Parliament,” editor-in-chief Steven Gan said.

“In particular, our Bahasa Malaysia site is seeing an unprecedented spike in viewership, increasing threefold.”

Malaysiakini’s fifth GE

On election day in 2013, Malaysiakini reached more than 500,000 users per minute, with an estimated 12 to 15 million unique viewers.

This time around, the portal is preparing for 20 million viewers come election day, May 9.

“Barring someone turning the Internet off, we expect more than 80 percent of voters with Internet access to surf Malaysiakini on polling day.

“We will be doing our best to ensure readers get the news and views, and election results,” Premesh said.

This 14th general election will be the fifth covered by Malaysiakini in 18 years, with the independent news portal having previously reported on the 1999, 2004, 2008 and 2013 general elections.

Malaysiakini’s Comment section will, however, remain restricted to subscribers.

For those who want to join Malaysiakini’s vibrant community of commenters and have their say during the election season, please subscribe here. Also, please donate to our Legal Defence Fund.