KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s growing bloc of young voters is reshaping the electoral landscape, but gaps in civic education and the rise of AI-driven content mean many are left to navigate a complex information environment on their own, say experts.
Universiti Malaya (UM) academic Prof Datuk Dr Danny Wong Tze Ken said lowering the voting age to 18 has brought school-leavers into the electorate at a formative stage of life, raising questions about how prepared they are to participate.
“At 18, many have just completed their SPM and are stepping out of school. The question is: do they know who to vote for?” he said.
Wong noted that while family influence still exists, young Malaysians are increasingly making up their own minds, guided more by what they encounter online than by party traditions.
“In primary school, we have moral education. But in the past, we also had civics, where you learnt about your responsibilities to the nation and society, and what the country should provide under the Constitution.
“Today, civics is no longer there in the same way. So we must ask – do we have sufficient political education when young people turn 18 and are expected to vote?” he said during the expert review of Assoc Prof Datuk Dr Monna Ong Siew Siew’s book, Engaging a Generation: Voting Intention and Political Participation Among Malaysian Millennials, at Bangunan Tun Tan Siew Sin on Monday (May 4).
TAR UMT Institute for Research Capacity and Publication director Prof Dr Ananda Kumar Palaniappan said Ong’s findings show that young Malaysians are becoming “independent thinkers” whose choices are shaped less by parents and peers and more by technology and their own critical judgement.
Citing the study, he said traditional “subjective norms” – the influence of family, friends and colleagues – were no longer significant in predicting voting intention, even though the research was grounded in the classic Theory of Planned Behaviour.
“Young voters are far more inquisitive and show a higher level of moral reasoning. They constantly ask, ‘What I see, is it true? How do I find out whether it’s real?’ This critical attitude is being translated into their voting tendencies,” he said.
With the rise of AI tools and sophisticated social media targeting, Prof Ananda said the “element of doubt” among younger voters had increased, but in a way that could sharpen their thinking as they sift through misinformation and manipulated content.
“Young voters are going to become kingmakers. They are tech-savvy, very critical and very visible on social media. Politicians may use AI and data to target them, but these voters will also scrutinise candidates very closely – and that, in the long run, is good for the country,” he said.
“Keluar Sekejap” co-host Shahril Hamdan said this shift makes neutral, fact-based political education even more urgent to raise the nation’s baseline understanding of democracy.
“I am not for the approach where older people tell the young how to think. What we need is a good civic conversation to ensure our discussions are fact-based and our information universe is as balanced as possible,” he said.
Shahril said there is still a gap in public understanding of basic democratic principles despite a decade of political upheaval.
“Our experience over the past 10 years shows we haven’t really succeeded in communicating some of the most important arguments to the public at large – not just to the youth. For example, the value of institutional independence is still not widely understood,” he said.
He suggested that individuals and media platforms play a bigger role in explaining “the basics” of Malaysia’s political system.
“Maybe part of the job is to ensure there’s better knowledge about how the Westminster system works, or why certain agency heads need parliamentary approval,” he said, adding that politicising education or moralising voting choices would be counter-productive.
“The most important thing is to increase the baseline knowledge about our democratic system, especially as so many young Malaysians are about to have their say at the ballot box,” he said.
