Too early to determine effects, say political analysts

PETALING JAYA: It’s too early to determine the effects of lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 in the country, say political analysts.

While some say that these are uncharted waters, there are those who believe that Pakatan Harapan parties would benefit most from any changes.

But Prof Dr Sivamurugan Pandian of Universiti Sains Malaysia believed that these were still early days to determine who would gain advantage from the lower voting age.

Political parties, he said, would only benefit if they addressed the issues of the targeted groups.

Prof Sivamurugan believed the biggest challenge was raising political literacy among the young future voters.

“They must understand the political system – how we choose an MP or an assemblyman. The government must address the issue of political literacy so that youngsters don’t come out to vote just for the sake of voting,” he said, adding that if the next elections were held in 2023, those currently in schools would have to be targeted.

Merdeka Centre programme director Ibrahim Suffian said the voting pattern of the younger voter was hard to tell as there was no data on it.

“Overall, the demographics are slightly overweighted in favour of Malay voters but how they will vote is dependent on prevailing conditions,” he said.

Dr James Chin, who is the director of the Asia Institute Tasmania, University of Tasmania, however said the proposal to lower the voting age from 21 to 18 would likely benefit Pakatan parties especially PKR and DAP.

Chin said that the youths viewed Umno as a corrupt old party while PAS was a party that restricted personal behaviour.

“Generally speaking in every constituency, 80% of young people will support Pakatan,” he said, adding that Opposition parties were likely to block any move to lower the voting age.

In the 14th General Election, more than 40% of the eligible voters were aged between 21 and 39, with a majority of them believed to have voted for the then Opposition.

Chin said that if a system was to be supposedly more democratic, the overriding principle was that more people are given the chance to participate in elections.