THE Malaysian United Democratic Alliance (Muda) will embark on two new missions to educate and ensure Malaysians locally and abroad vote in the general election, the party’s information chief Luqman Long said.  

In gearing-up for the 15th general election (GE15), Luqman said that the two new campaigns are crucial to directly address youth as he claimed it would enlighten them about Malaysian political parties, the country’s current political scenario, and the importance of voting.  

“For Muda, the youth education programme is really important,” Luqman, who is also the youth-based party’s co-founder, told The Malaysian Insight.  

“This campaign aims for two things, that is to educate and increase the awareness of voters about GE15. 

“We need to get all the fence sitters well-prepared and knowing of their candidates—which are the political parties and what do they offer the people in the upcoming election?

“We also need to make voters understand why some state assemblies are not dissolving to have their state elections concurrently with GE15. We need to educate mainly youth,” he added.  

Luqman said that they are in the final stages of committee meetings before they launch the voter education campaign.  

The Muda information chief said that the second campaign would be to increase the voter turnout for GE15.  

For this, Muda would work closely with youth-movement Undi18 to ensure youth residing locally and abroad carried out their moral duty to vote. 

“Hence, the second part will be to increase the voter turnout of those residing in Malaysia and also those who reside abroad as students or working professionals. 

“Most important is to get the people residing abroad to vote and get their ballots back here. 

“So, regardless of where one resides, we want to ensure they get their ballot paper into the ballot box,” Luqman said. 

Previously, Undi18 co-founder Tharma Pillai told The Malaysian Insight that the youth movement was organising a project to bring back 50,000 overseas ballots to ensure more Malaysians received a chance to vote in GE15. 

He said they would be working with 13 youth and student organisations in 10 countries to achieve this goal.   

The participating countries are Australia, United Kingdom, United States, Turkey, Morocco, Japan, Germany, Egypt, Singapore, and Qatar. 

Undi18 had successfully advocated for the amendment of the Federal Constitution to reduce the minimum voting age in Malaysia from 21 to 18 years old. The group started off as a student movement in 2016 under the umbrella of the Malaysian Students’ Global Alliance. 

Tharma urged postal voters to register for their ballots for the project to succeed. 

He said that currently there are one million registered overseas voters who are either working or studying abroad. 

University tours to reach undergrads 

Besides this, Luqman said that Muda had also been having a series of tours across colleges and universities for the past one year to activate “Mahasiswa Muda”. 

“The six states where Mahasiswa Muda has been activated are Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Johor, Perak, Sabah, and Terengganu. 

“We have representatives in each and every university and college aiming to promote the idea of Muda and for this particular GE to increase awareness of GE15 among their colleagues, friends, and fellow students,” he added.  

Although they didn’t have much time before the calling of GE15, Luqman said that they would try to cover as many states as possible.  

“We shall see how to crunch all those efforts within the short span before GE15. We will do our best,” he said.  

Luqman said that Muda’s sole MP from Muar, Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman and recently elected Puteri Wangsa assemblyman Amira Aisya Abd Aziz have also started engaging with youth leaders in universities and colleges to start promoting the party for the upcoming GE15.  

Luqman also said that Muda is planning to start a campaign soon to urge voters to “Balik Rumah” (Get Home) to vote. – October 18, 2022.