MALAYSIAN youth are not interested in politics because they are fed up of listening to issues on race and religion which are used to garner votes, a youth forum heard today.

Panellists at the forum described the issues as “old man politics” while adding youth feel left out because the government rarely engages them.

Panellist, Tarmizi Anuwar, a member of DAP Socialist Youth, said two recent cases involving Mustafa Akyol and Joshua Wong, were examples of issues which put off youth from politics.

Turkish author, Mustafa Akyol, was detained on orders from the Federal Territories Religious Department (Jawi) as he prepared to board a flight at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on September 25. He was accused of giving a religious talk without proper accreditations.

Activist Joshua Wong was jailed in Hong Kong over his role in pro-democracy protests that sparked the months-long Umbrella Movement demonstrations and street blockades. 

“Looking at the Election Commission data, more than 40% of youths are not registered as voters,” Anuwar said at the “Envisioning Our Future: Youth Rebels against Old Politics” forum in Petaling Jaya today.  

“They are turned off by old man politics.”
 
A survey by Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research previously found 70% of youth did not care for politics, citing the distrust of politicians, lack of interest, and sense of helplessness.

Another panellist, Jean Vaneisha Ravindran, secretary-general of Challenger, a youth movement, said the disinterest is caused by youths not understanding the political scenario.

“We don’t know what Barisan Nasional stands for other than ‘Janji Ditepati’, 1MDB, Najib Razak. These are just phrases we hear and it doesn’t compel us to say ‘I’m going to vote for these people because they take my ideas and apply them’.

“It is the same with Pakatan Harapan. They say they are going to abolish corruption and bring back transparency, but what does that do for youth?” said Ravindran.

She said the educational system has limited youth’s understanding of the country’s political scenario.

Lee Chean Chung, PKR state assemblyman for Semambu, Pahang, who was the third panellist, said the solution to having better youth engagement, is having frequent intellectual discussions.

“The National Taiwan University has a four-day political camp for their social-political science course where they role-play an election,” he said.

He added political parties should be more vocal about the youth issues to increase engagement.

The forum was moderated by Jay Jay Denis, a policy analyst at Monitoring Sustainability of Globalisation.

Another survey by Institut Darul Ehsan (IDE) found getting a good job and coping with rising living costs are foremost on young voters’ minds.

The five-day survey revealed only half of the 4,486 respondents had decided who they would vote for while 22% said they would only decide after nomination, 9% a week before elections and the remaining 19% on election day.

Most voters aged 21 and 30 dominated the “undecided” category. – December 2, 2017.