Youth want leaders who will pay attention to their needs

Hope for stability: Karthigeyan (left) and Surya Varman want the needs of the poor taken care of.

KULAI: A young sundry shop worker in Felda Taib Andak here remembers how difficult life was after Pakatan Harapan won power in the 14th General Election.

Muhammad Haziq Syamsul Akhmar, 20, said the new government then failed to address some of the concerns raised by the villagers.

“I think the most affected were the older generation, like my parents and the elderly in the village, who traditionally support Umno and Barisan Nasional.

“After Barisan’s defeat, village life also died as those in power tried to replace and root out traces of support for it from the grassroots,” he said when met at his parents’ store at Kampung Bahagia in the Felda settlement

Muhammad Haziq said that youth activities had also stopped because most of the facilities had been built by Umno or by Umno leaders in the past.

Alma Iman Bahrom, 21, said during the Pakatan leadership, his village had received less aid.

“They shouldn’t view us as an Umno Malay village but a Malaysian village that needs help. They even appointed a village chief who was not from here.

“They clearly did not understand the needs of the grassroots,” said Alma, who also works in a sundry store.

Mussyahirin Musa, a 20-year-old student, wishes for the youth to be given a chance to lead and represent their constituency.

“We hope that GE15 will introduce fresh and younger faces and that more leaders will pay attention to the needs of the youth, especially in rural areas,” he said.

As for office clerk Wong Sin Ping, 24, who lives in Kampung Baru, her priority is seeing more affordable homes for young people, especially those who are single.

“Currently, every housing project focuses on families and not those who are single, so I hope we will have a leader who can voice our concerns on this matter,” she said.

Restaurant waiter Kee Rou Rou, 18, said there were no attractions in Kulai despite it being the number one contributor to Johor’s revenue.

“If we can bring in investors to Kulai, why can’t we get tourists here? Then there will be economic spillovers from the industrial areas to food and beverage operators and others. We have many local food stalls in Kulai, but we do not attract outsiders to come and visit us,” she said.

Meanwhile, an 18-year-old student, M. Karthigeyan, from Kampung Kelapa Sawit, wants the lawmaker representing Kulai to be sensitive to the needs of the hardcore poor.

“There are elderly people from my village who still haven’t received their ICs, even though they have lived here for a long time.

“They have spent all their years working and helping their families but have forgotten to take care of themselves,” he said.

Another young villager there, lorry operator S. Surya Varman, also noted the success of Kulai as being a top contributor to the state economy.

“I hope this success will help transform the lives of the Kampung Kelapa Sawit folks because some of them still have trouble paying their rent or having stable incomes,” said the 20-year-old, the eldest of four children.

He also lauded the effort by the state government to move the hardcore families from their squatter homes to comfortable PPR (People’s Housing Programme) units.