Malaysia election: As race heats up to win youth vote, do veteran MPs pass the ‘vibe check’?
- Voters aged 18 to 39 account for about half the country’s 21 million registered voters, including about 1.39 million first-time voters in the 18-20 age group
- In a political system run by people old enough to be their parents or grandparents, are they convinced it’s worth their time to queue up and cast their ballots?
Voters between the ages of 18 and 39 account for about half of the country’s 21 million registered voters, according to Election Commission data, including about 1.39 million first-time voters in the 18-20 age group.
But in a political system typically run by people old enough to be their parents – or even grandparents – are they convinced that it would be worth their time to line up and cast their ballots?
“We have to admit that we lack political education … now we are asking the young generation aged 18 to start voting, to make important decisions for the country, the most important decision they can make at any given time,” said Adam Adli, youth chief of the opposition People’s Justice Party (PKR).
“It’s very important for us to start looking at that. It’s not that we are not confident in the ability of this generation to make such decisions, but basically there is no benchmark or indicator (of their political engagement) as of now.”