STUDIES showing the opposition will benefit from Undi-18 vote is driving the opposition campaign to hold the Sarawak elections after this group of voters are added to the electoral roll, said analysts and poll watchers.

They said public opinion surveys among this age group has shown that many of them were inclined to go with the opposition, leaving those in the ruling Gabungan Party Sarawak (GPS) coalition worrying about their grip on the state.

Meanwhile, GPS is said to be pushing for the state polls to be held before the end of the year.

The Election Commission (EC) is currently in the process of registration but the new roll, including 18-year olds, is not expected to be ready until next year.

University of Tasmania director of the Asia Institute James Chin said this was the real reason why the opposition does not want the election expedited.

“They believe the public opinion surveys that say younger people are more anti-establishment,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

The academic said, although there are no records to show how 18- to 20-year-olds vote, surveys run by all the parties have indicated that the young generally were less inclined to vote for the government.

“They like politics to serve their interests and their general view is that the politicians are not doing so for young people,” he said.

Sarawak has been in a state of emergency, which expires in February next year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, the debacle in Malacca and impending elections on November 20 has added pressure on the Sarawak government to follow suit and allow the state to go to the polls.

Yet, Chin said the opposition could be in for surprise if it relies heavily on those surveys because all the mainstream political parties in the state had engaged these young voters.

He even went as far to say that some organisations targeting young people are either directly or indirectly affiliated with the government.

Simon Siah, the lawyer who was the legal counsel for Sarawak Undi18, agreed the opposition is relying on past statistics to hedge its bets on young voters if it is to have any hope of toppling four-party GPS.

“Based on statistics, generally younger (voters) are pro-opposition and that is why GPS is worried that the election result may not be favourable to them (if they hold the election next year).

“The addition of the new voters – Undi18 and those automatic voter registration – will definitely have an impact on the political landscape,” he said.

Siah represented Sarawak Undi 18 when the state chapter took the matter to court, which then saw the court order the government, through the EC, to implement Undi 18 by the end of the year.

Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB) vice president Abdul Karim Hamzah has trashed assertions that young voters will vote against GPS, calling it the “empty talk of the opposition”.

He said GPS – which also includes Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS), the Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) and Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) – has nothing to fear.

“If I have my way, I want them to vote,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

Karim, who is also Sarawak minister of tourism, arts and culture, said it is wrong for the opposition to assume all the young and new voters will vote for it.

“Not all the votes will go to them and on the same token not all will go to us. It is for each and every party to woo the youth.”

Karim said GPS is also buoyed by its own index survey.

“I am very confident the youths, from the survey, will be with us.”

With or without the new young voters, Karim said GPS will again “win big” he said.

In the last state elections in 2016, the coalition – then part of Sarawak Barisan Nasional – swept to a landslide victory winning two-third of the 82 seats contested.

Last week, Sarawak PKR sent a petition to Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah, appealing to him to use his wisdom and not consent to the election going ahead “until the Covid-19 situation in the state is at a safe level”.

Fuelled by speculative news reports that the state will go to the polls on November 27 after news seeped out that Sarawak Yang di-Pertua Negri Abdul Taib Mahmud had conferred with the king about the Covid-19 situation in the state, Sarawak DAP chairman Chong Chieng Jen on Saturday repeated there is no need for GPS “to take the active step to request the king to prematurely revoke the state of emergency, so that Sarawak can hold the elections before the end of this year”.

The Stampin MP said Sarawak is now among the states with the highest number of new Covid cases.

At the same time, the state also recorded the second highest number of Covid deaths per 1 million population.

“We are talking about the lives of Sarawakians, which GPS should not take lightly,” he said.

Civil society organisation Rise of Social Efforts, or Rose as its popularly known, has echoed the opposition’s narrative, saying an election before the end of this year will mean denying about 666,000 young Sarawakians the right to vote.

That number, Rose co-ordinator Anne Teo said, represents an increase of 54.5% of the total number of Sarawak voters compared to the 14th general election in 2018.

“To deny them the right to vote now, when they are on the cusp of being registered, is to thus show contempt for the high court’s decision and also the federal government’s desire to give more power to youth to participate in the nation’s development process,” Teo said. – October 29, 2021.