3.7 million more voters if voting age lowered to 18, says Syed Saddiq

Updated 5 years ago · Published on 23 Jul 2018 9:34AM · 1 Comments

Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman says lowering the voting age to 18 will add 3.7 million voters to the electoral roll. – The Malaysian Insight pic by Seth Akmal, July 23, 2018.

LOWERING the voting age to 18 will add 3.7 million voters to the electoral roll from the previous general election, Bloomberg reports Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman as saying.

The 25% addition of registered voters will also make the youth bloc “bigger and stronger”, he added, saying youth can no longer be “sidelines” in the Malaysian political scene.

Currently, voters aged 21-39 make up about 40% of the Malaysian electorate, which is twice the number of voters over the age of 60, according to the Election Commission.

Syed Saddiq was speaking about Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s plan to increase youth voting power in future general elections.

He said the cabinet is currently seeking the help of the Attorney-General’s Chambers to amend the necessary laws to make this possible.

Bloomberg also spoke to Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research’s Ibrahim Suffian, who said 75% of young voters had backed the opposition (Pakatan Harapan) in the 14th general election.

Among this age group, the centre estimated a voter turnout of about 81% in the May 9 polls. – July 23, 2018.

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Comments

  • In all honesty, lower the age to 18 may fill up the electoral voters but are they matured enough to have maturity of thoughts process. The overall country landscape of differentiating the needs on socio political and economical process needs not just volume but a level headed rakyat through exposure and experience in selection to ensure that the best political front be the government of the country. If by going for youth volume just to win an election would seem to be an insincere government of day where the priotity is to stay in power but not the quality of governance.

    Posted 5 years ago by Lee Lee · Reply