Yuneswaran Ramaraj (born 1986), commonly referred to as R. Yuneswaran is a Malaysian politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Segamat since November 2022. He is a member of the People's Justice Party (PKR), a component party of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition. ^[1]

Early years

He grew up in the Klang Valley and attended Sin Min Chinese School in Sungai Besar, Selangor before completing secondary school at SMK Desa Cemerlang (Ulu Tiram), Johor. He eventually obtained an MBA through the Anglia Ruskin University. ^[2]

He joined PKR in 2008 and was the first person to be prosecuted under the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012 for organising the Blackout 505 rally in Johor in 2013. ^{[3] [4]} In 2018 he served as campaign manager for Edmund Santhara who managed to wrest the seat from Barisan Nasional for the first time. ^[5]

After Santhara defected, Yuneswaran was selected by PKR and he won in the 2022 General election by a comfortable majority of 5,669 votes over MIC’s M Ramasamy, with Perikatan Nasional’s P Poobalan trailing in third. ^[6]

On April 3, 2023, the election court in Muar dismissed Ramasamy’s election petition challenging Yuneswaran’s victory. ^[7] However on August 18, 2023, the Federal Court today set aside the verdict and allowed Ramasamy's appeal to send back his Segamat election petition to the Election Court for a full hearing. ^[8] Eventually, on Nov 8, 2023, Election Court judge Rohani Ismail allowed Ramasamy’s application to discontinue the petition. ^[9]

Following his election Yuneswaran called for flood mitigation and transport infrastructure upgrades in northern Johor to be made a priority. He also backed electoral reforms calling for proportional representation in the Dewan Rakyat and the elections for municipal councils and the Dewan Negara. ^[10]

Election result

References