Cold feet among Perikatan? As parties gear up for early GE15, Undi18 voters remain a wild card
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Malaysia will see a flood of new young voters if the voting age gets lowered to 18. — File picture by Shafwan Zaidon
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 14 — Should the 15th general election (GE15) be held after July this year, Malaysia will see a flood of new young voters as the voting age gets lowered to 18 thanks to an amendment in 2019 dubbed “Undi18”, and automatic voter registration.
But with no previous data on them available, these young and new voters remain unpredictable to both political divide in how they would cast their ballots — leading many parties previously endorsing and calling for a general election earlier before July instead, even as the country still grapples with Covid-19.
Prior to the Emergency being announced, several sources within Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia, had told Malay Mail that the party had been gearing up for an election as early as the first half of the year, in order to take advantage of the unknown factor.
One source in the party with connections to a senior minister had echoed the sentiment, saying its “data team” is currently churning the numbers to determine seat negotiations between PN and its allies.
“The negotiations are being made and the data team is ready. The problem with new voters is that the data is yet to be available on them.
“Better to have an early election as most of the parties and supporters will be ready now,” said the source.
But PN and Bersatu now seems to be unconvinced with new voters set to come into fray, with Dewan Negara president Tan Sri Rais Yatim recently claiming that the decision to lower the voting age to 18-years-old starting this July was one made hastily and teenagers are still not ready to commit to the democratic process.
The remarks and rumours that the voting age change may be countermanded has led to the Undi18 movement, which was pushing for the law amendment, to demand Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin to reiterate his commitment towards the matter.
The group also reminded Rais that the decision to amend Article 119(1) on the voting age limit was a bi-partisan decision which was unanimously agreed upon by all MPs on July 16, 2019.
Is the young in Pakatan’s sights?
Pakatan Harapan (PH) parties were also preparing for an early election pointing at the possibility and tendency of PN to not only avoid the new voters, but also exploiting the supposed weakness of the Opposition and banking on the feel-good factor of the Covid-19 vaccine supply.
“When PH failed to stop the Budget 2021 votes, Bersatu would want to take advantages of that.
“They will be using the narrative that the Opposition don’t have a clear leader and used the vaccines as a campaign to get ready for the election,” said a source from PKR.
Meanwhile, a source from Parti Amanah Negara accused PN of not wanting to risk the votes held by younger generations, which he claimed are vocally criticising the government in the social media.
“If you have more voters from the younger generation, it might not benefit PN and Umno at all,” said the source.
In November last year, the minister in charge of Parliament and law Datuk Takiyuddin Hassan said the implementation of the 18-year-old voting age and automatic voter registration is expected to commence at the latest by July this year.
Replying to a Dewan Rakyat question, Takiyuddin added that the Election Commission (EC) was currently working with the National Registration Department to make preparations to implement automatic voter registration and other related matters.
In July 2019, the amendment was passed by all 211 lawmakers present in the Lower House of Parliament, marking the first Bill in Parliament to receive multi-partisan support since the PH took power in 2018.
The amendment also included provisions for voters to be automatically registered on electoral rolls and for candidates to be eligible to stand for election from 18 years of age.
Then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said as many as 7.8 millions of new voters will be eligible to vote at the next general election once these changes are implemented.
Who will the young vote for?
But Tharma Pillai, the co-founder of Undi18, said that the huge influx of young new voters may not actually benefit any particular political parties, and perhaps not like what the parties have expected.
He told Malay Mail that the young voters tend to vote on established trends and existing status quo.
“It doesn’t seem that there will be a massive change from established norms ever unless if there is a signification movement. You see in GE14, there was a massive movement for change, with the anti-Najib sentiment for example,’’ referring to the 1MDB global financial scandal that implicated now-convicted former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak
“Even those who were typical won’t vote for the opposition, typically would only vote based on racial lines or based on loyalty to political parties, had voted for PH,’’ he said.
Tharma added that geography and demography will still play a major role for the young voters.
“There is also a religious and racial element to it, so when it comes to new voters they are not completely unknown factors because there is still consistency in terms of geography, race and religion that help you determine whether or not this person will vote for DAP or perhaps Umno or perhaps Bersatu or perhaps PAS, so these are established things.
“So for example, a young person in Kelantan has a very high probability to vote for PAS, I think these are not unknown factors, it’s something that we already understand.
“Only if there is massive movement then young voters could surprise us,’’ said Tharma, although conceding that PH still has an advantage with support from many young voters nationwide.
Political analyst Azmi Hassan also echoed Tharma’s sentiments that new voters are still likely to stick with the status quo.
“Alas, these new voters don’t have that luxury of choice if today’s political scenario is taken into account.
“It’s again Bersatu, Umno, PAS and PH in the forefront which is not much of change since GE14,” the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia geostrategist told Malay Mail, referring to the dearth of new political choice.
“As it is as of now, I don’t foresee any new political party will crop up, that can entice these new voters. Even these voters are first-timers, I can safely bet they are also looking for well established and tested parties when making their choice at the ballot box,’’ he added.
Although some in the government had been raring for an early snap election, the state of Emergency until August 1 announced by Muhyiddin last month has put the issue on the backburner.
With the Parliament and state assemblies currently suspended, Muhyiddin has reiterated that he is keen to seek for the dissolution of Parliament and hold a snap general election as soon as Covid-19 comes under control and the Emergency is rescinded.
But with no previous data on them available, these young and new voters remain unpredictable to both political divide in how they would cast their ballots — leading many parties previously endorsing and calling for a general election earlier before July instead, even as the country still grapples with Covid-19.
Prior to the Emergency being announced, several sources within Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia, had told Malay Mail that the party had been gearing up for an election as early as the first half of the year, in order to take advantage of the unknown factor.
One source in the party with connections to a senior minister had echoed the sentiment, saying its “data team” is currently churning the numbers to determine seat negotiations between PN and its allies.
“The negotiations are being made and the data team is ready. The problem with new voters is that the data is yet to be available on them.
“Better to have an early election as most of the parties and supporters will be ready now,” said the source.
But PN and Bersatu now seems to be unconvinced with new voters set to come into fray, with Dewan Negara president Tan Sri Rais Yatim recently claiming that the decision to lower the voting age to 18-years-old starting this July was one made hastily and teenagers are still not ready to commit to the democratic process.
The remarks and rumours that the voting age change may be countermanded has led to the Undi18 movement, which was pushing for the law amendment, to demand Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin to reiterate his commitment towards the matter.
The group also reminded Rais that the decision to amend Article 119(1) on the voting age limit was a bi-partisan decision which was unanimously agreed upon by all MPs on July 16, 2019.
Is the young in Pakatan’s sights?
Pakatan Harapan (PH) parties were also preparing for an early election pointing at the possibility and tendency of PN to not only avoid the new voters, but also exploiting the supposed weakness of the Opposition and banking on the feel-good factor of the Covid-19 vaccine supply.
“When PH failed to stop the Budget 2021 votes, Bersatu would want to take advantages of that.
“They will be using the narrative that the Opposition don’t have a clear leader and used the vaccines as a campaign to get ready for the election,” said a source from PKR.
Meanwhile, a source from Parti Amanah Negara accused PN of not wanting to risk the votes held by younger generations, which he claimed are vocally criticising the government in the social media.
“If you have more voters from the younger generation, it might not benefit PN and Umno at all,” said the source.
In November last year, the minister in charge of Parliament and law Datuk Takiyuddin Hassan said the implementation of the 18-year-old voting age and automatic voter registration is expected to commence at the latest by July this year.
Replying to a Dewan Rakyat question, Takiyuddin added that the Election Commission (EC) was currently working with the National Registration Department to make preparations to implement automatic voter registration and other related matters.
In July 2019, the amendment was passed by all 211 lawmakers present in the Lower House of Parliament, marking the first Bill in Parliament to receive multi-partisan support since the PH took power in 2018.
The amendment also included provisions for voters to be automatically registered on electoral rolls and for candidates to be eligible to stand for election from 18 years of age.
Then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said as many as 7.8 millions of new voters will be eligible to vote at the next general election once these changes are implemented.
Who will the young vote for?
But Tharma Pillai, the co-founder of Undi18, said that the huge influx of young new voters may not actually benefit any particular political parties, and perhaps not like what the parties have expected.
He told Malay Mail that the young voters tend to vote on established trends and existing status quo.
“It doesn’t seem that there will be a massive change from established norms ever unless if there is a signification movement. You see in GE14, there was a massive movement for change, with the anti-Najib sentiment for example,’’ referring to the 1MDB global financial scandal that implicated now-convicted former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak
“Even those who were typical won’t vote for the opposition, typically would only vote based on racial lines or based on loyalty to political parties, had voted for PH,’’ he said.
Tharma added that geography and demography will still play a major role for the young voters.
“There is also a religious and racial element to it, so when it comes to new voters they are not completely unknown factors because there is still consistency in terms of geography, race and religion that help you determine whether or not this person will vote for DAP or perhaps Umno or perhaps Bersatu or perhaps PAS, so these are established things.
“So for example, a young person in Kelantan has a very high probability to vote for PAS, I think these are not unknown factors, it’s something that we already understand.
“Only if there is massive movement then young voters could surprise us,’’ said Tharma, although conceding that PH still has an advantage with support from many young voters nationwide.
Political analyst Azmi Hassan also echoed Tharma’s sentiments that new voters are still likely to stick with the status quo.
“Alas, these new voters don’t have that luxury of choice if today’s political scenario is taken into account.
“It’s again Bersatu, Umno, PAS and PH in the forefront which is not much of change since GE14,” the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia geostrategist told Malay Mail, referring to the dearth of new political choice.
“As it is as of now, I don’t foresee any new political party will crop up, that can entice these new voters. Even these voters are first-timers, I can safely bet they are also looking for well established and tested parties when making their choice at the ballot box,’’ he added.
Although some in the government had been raring for an early snap election, the state of Emergency until August 1 announced by Muhyiddin last month has put the issue on the backburner.
With the Parliament and state assemblies currently suspended, Muhyiddin has reiterated that he is keen to seek for the dissolution of Parliament and hold a snap general election as soon as Covid-19 comes under control and the Emergency is rescinded.
Contrary to earlier hopes from Harapan that this group would be more liberal and open-minded.
ReplyDeleteThe majority of Undi18 voters are even more Zombie-like in adhering to the Race and Religion Supremacy platform.
This generation completely buys into the "Special Rights Entitlement" and Islamic State mentality.
The virus spread even more effectively by the Social Media platforms that they frequent.
And due to low birth rates among the Nons, the demographics of the Undi18 group is more than 70%++ Bumi.
agree. look at ccp zombie, the youth generation hv little understanding of history, but definitely the biggest number of loudmouth on issue of hating american n conquer taiwan. zombies r groomed when brain start function, to make it no function.
DeleteAgreed?
DeleteThat's the typical Formosa katak farts repeated ad nauseam!
The younger Chinese generation has a better views, both sopo historical events & in-depth understanding of the flow of events, due to their better education & worldview.
By comparison, all these f*cked katak have little & twisted understanding of history. Cloaking loudly with the loudest mouth on issue of hating China & against taiwan unification into motherland.
Rightly said & targeted wrongly - katak r groomed when brain starts functioning. In other words - a meme-ed hatred of no endinging!
Thus NO new insights but repeating of staled fart, coming out from that fart filled well!
The Batty with the batshit brain, the moment he opens his mouth, it is "ccp zombie" morning and night non stop. His hatred is only matched by the Taiwanese, whose hatred towards mainland Chinese in China is irrational but the reasons to engineer such hatred is very rational.
DeleteThe rest of the young generation don't have a clue of history? So what history does this Batty dumbass have knowledge of except all the warped fake historical narratives created by Formosa ?
Taiwan was ruled by the KMT for a long time. KMT lost the civil war with CCP and escaped to Taiwan. So for several decades, KMT painted CCP as an evil government and claimed KMT is the better and more legit government of China. [ Admittedly, as a result of many horrendous mistakes, CCP itself did provide lots of good materials for KMT's propaganda campaign]
So under KMT, the theme on the media as well as TEXTBOOKS, is that CCP is bad, and we ( the 'real' Chinese on the Taiwan island ), need to liberate our fellow Chinese from the tyranny of CCP. Until that point, most Taiwanese still believed they were Chinese.
Then DPP came along. Its biggest goal is Taiwan Independence. To achieve that goal, painting CCP as evil is not enough. DPP has done a wonderful job of removing the "Chineseness" from Taiwanese consciousness, starting with the textbooks - the young minds are always the easiest to mold.
And since Taiwan and mainland China are closely integrated economically, many Taiwanese have the chance to visit mainland China. And China is thriving. Many positions in China can now offer higher salaries than similar positions in Taiwan. So to reduce the attraction of China, the genius solution is to remove the Chinese identity and cultivating Taiwanese identity ! But this is not enough...it's better to hate mainland China. If one hates China, it is sufficient to counter the threat of a stronger and richer China.
And the fact that DPP sucks at managing Taiwanese economy also motivates DPP to promote hatred as it deflects their people's attention from their incompetence in running Taiwan. Much like the parties in the US using identity politics to hide their incompetence.
( to continue..)
If you have knowledge of Taiwan history and follow Taiwan politics, what DPP is doing makes perfect sense. It is a rather useful technique for the small and weak to play up the fear and promote hatred against their bigger and stronger neighbor to help solidify popular support and enhance national identity. All this is a piece of cake to the politicians...whip up the hatred and it works frightfully well. [ Sounds familiar, right ? we here in our wonderful tanah air kita ini...we the NONs have first hand experience of this hatred too]
DeleteTaiwanese call the people across the Straits Chinese Pigs, cheered when mainland Chinese tourists were burned to death in a Taiwanese bus, joked about selling contaminated pork to the "low lives" in mainland China and insisted, up to this very day, on calling Covid19 as Wuhan virus.
Beijing used to shield their own people from the incredible amount of shit that Taiwanese threw at them by blocking and censoring the Taiwanese websites and TV programs in China. Beijing did that because it still hoped for a peaceful solution. But the DPP is hell bent on fanning the hatred and it has reached toxic level, such that it reached a point of no return. KMT has fucked up so much that it has lost the ability to challenge DPP, which means that pro-independence DPP could end up ruling Taiwan indefinitely.
So Beijing lifted the curtain and allowed mainland Chinese to see what the Taiwanese really think of them, to feel the pure, unadulterated toxic hatred flowing out from Taiwan. It wasn't a beautiful sight.
Suddenly the mainland Chinese received an avalanche of cruel, mocking and jeering words from the Taiwanese netizens, cheering for more disasters to befall on mainland Chinese; and screen shots of the toxic words of the Taiwanese rednecks and videos of Taiwanese TV hosts making all kinds of idiotic claims about China....all these spread like wild fire on the Chinese internet.
It is simply actions and reactions. Cause and Effects. It takes two to tango, as they said. Officially, the Chinese official media doesn't need to do anything at all. It never talks about the hatred of these Taiwanese towards mainland Chinese. Social media has done its job for Beijing.
Naturally, at this point, the animosity the people feel towards each other on both sides of the Straits has passed the point of no return.
A forceful takeover of Taiwan is now NOT a question of IF but WHEN.
Note : Just like our Bolehland, the hatred and animosity, the distrust and the jealousy towards the others, Taiwan has similarly cultivated deliberately for DECADES, such a 'strategy', starting in schools with revised school textbooks, government approved TV programs and social media. If the relentless slandering of the Western media towards China today is horrendously bad, then the Taiwan case is at least 10 times worse. It is almost impossible to reverse the brainwashed unwashed masses of the Taiwanese, exactly like in our Bolehland, which started with BTN under the tutelage of the Black Mamba from Kerala.
You want a piece of history ?
DeleteTaiwan's Formosan Genocide - The February 28 incident or the February 28 massacre, also known as the 228 gives us a clue.
This is the REAL massacre, unlike the fake fabricated 'Tiananmen Massacre' which the sly pretentious Taiwanese persist in making a big show of commemorating every anniversary, while they closed both eyes to the thousands massacred in their own province.
" As many as 28,000 Taiwanese civilians were believed to be killed after an attempted uprising in 1947, a systematic massacre significant not only for its scale but also for the silence that enshrouded the subject for decades afterward. Because of a 38-year period of martial law that followed the killings, it was verboten to even mention such deaths publicly. To this day, it remains a painful and controversial subject among Taiwan's older generation."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/28/for-decades-no-one-spoke-of-taiwans-hidden-massacre-a-new-generation-is-breaking-the-silence/
same technique and tactic used by Hongkies - hate Mainlanders, burned their shops, bashed them. Sheer stupidity when the reality is HK is just a mere very small province, in fact just a dot, of China - thus their hatred of and for Mainlanders is hatred of/for their own people, egged on by gleeful Westerners and a very quiet Japan.
DeletePlease DON'T u ever associate this 犬养mfer with anything China/Chinese!
DeleteIt definitely ain't one!
It's a big insult to ALL Chinese, within&without China.
wow the 3 musketeers hv not only the ability to confuse, they oso great at conflate n confound, thats the advantage when one access freely to information, for eg washington post.
DeleteWakakakakaka…
DeleteWP!
Why not CNN, BBC, sky news?
Talking about "great at conflate n confound"!!!
Mfer, check yr f*cked dictionary before u parade yr 南魔萬 England lah.
"same technique and tactic used by Hongkies - hate Mainlanders, burned their shops, bashed them. Sheer stupidity when the reality is HK is just a mere very small province, in fact just a dot, of China - thus their hatred of and for Mainlanders is hatred of/for their own people, egged on by gleeful Westerners and a very quiet Japan."....fr KT
DeleteYes ! Same MO. The youngsters were brainwashed to hate the mainland Chinese, their colleges and universities choke full of lecturers who totally poisoned their minds. With one fell swoop, the new security law, long overdue, has put a stop to all the mayhem and chaos, while at the same time had effectively driven out all those thousands of Western spies hiding in the nooks and corners to instigate the Chinese to go against the Chinese. Of course Japan the little poodle, in the vice grip of their overlord the Biggest Bully AmeriKKKa, will as usual, by force and by choice, will sit by the sideline quietly applauding, with its Nikkei Asia churning out shits for gullible guppies like MonstrousBigot and TipuCiinaKooi TS.