IF you are old enough to die for your country, you are old enough to have a say in charting its future.

Lembah Pantai MP Fahmi Fadzil believes this as a supporter of the Pakatan Harapan government’s move to lower the voting age from 21 to 18. 

The first-term legislator said: “Today there is a lot of talk about digital natives (a person born during the digital technology age) but we should be creating democracy natives.”

“And this democratic culture should be nurtured at a young age. This culture would include the ability to agree and to disagree, civility in disagreement and respect for democracy.” 

Article 119(1) of the federal constitution states the voting age is 21.

Many countries including in Western Europe, the UK, United States, Pakistan, New Zealand, India and Japan allow voting at 18. Malaysia and Singapore are among the few countries where one has to be 21 to vote.

Youth maturity

Lowering the age of voting is one way to recognise the maturity and intellectual capability of the youth to participate in the national process, said Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman.

“All the developed countries have already given the youth the right to vote… to let them make up their own minds,” said the youth and sports minister who is also the the youngest member of the cabinet.

Syed Saddiq, who is the Muar MP, said it was crucial to engage the young people in the political process.

“They can learn to care about issues such as education, cost of living, etc, as these matters affect their lives too.”

Former youth and sports minister Khairy Jamaluddin said he supported the proposal to lower the voting age in principle, but wants the government’s assurance of an education process for the young voters.

Khairy, who was popular with the youth when he was their minister, did not think that politics would distract students from their education.

“All that has been slowly liberalised during the Barisan Nasional government and now under Pakatan Harapan, more political activities are permitted on the campus. 

“After the last elections, lowering the voting age will not do more than what has already being done,” said the opposition MP.

Electoral watchdog Bersih 2.0 chairman Thomas Fann said any concern about immaturity could be mitigated by political and civic education.

“In the short term, upper secondary school curriculum can include a course on it but in the long term, civic education on the rights, roles and responsibilities of citizenship should start from Primary 1,” said Fann.

Open field

The previous government was worried that lowering the voting age would give the opposition an edge, said Khairy.

“But it’s really an open field for everyone. Young voters are open and not particularly attached or loyal to any particular political parties.

“In the past, if you lowered the voting age, it was believed that it would be disadvantageous to BN but that has changed after GE14,” said former Umno Youth chief.

PKR communications chief Fahmi believe that being political is not the same as being partisan. 

“Many community initiatives such as Friends of Bukit Kiara or Save Kuala Lumpur are political in nature but they are not partisan,” said the backbencher.

“The same can be said about youth. While it’s an open market for everyone, it’s important for them to separate the political structures and culture from partisanship.” – March 21, 2019.