While the right to vote was lowered to 18 years old, young people had to be one of the major issues of the legislative elections of November 19.
by Brice Pedroletti (sent Special at Kuala Lumpur and Muar)
In Muar, a small town of the Malaysian coast in the south-east of Malacca, the headquarters of the united democratic alliance party of Malaysia (MUDA) is a simple room stuck between two shops, not far from a fishing port . On this monsoon day of November 11, young people prepare the black and white T-shirts of the party for the Cenarah, the electoral meeting of the party founder, Syed Saddiq, 29, which is held the same evening. These young people, who will vote for the first time, are one of the major challenges of the legislative elections of November 19, the first since 2018.
A constitutional reform which entered into force in 2021 has indeed lowered the age of voting by 21 to 18 years, making possible, for the first time, to speak political in universities. It also established an automatic voter recording system. These two measures suddenly inflated the potential electorate of 40 % compared to 2018, or 6 million additional voters.
Syed Saddiq is a candidate for his re-election in the riding of Muar, during this election which follows two years of political crisis where two prime ministers without consultation with voters have followed because of COVID-19. In 2021, by learned maneuvers, the national organization of the Malay Unity (UMNO), the training that had been holding the country since independence in 1957, managed to return to power. She had been hunted in 2018 after the scandal “1MDB” (“1Malaysia Development Berhad”), the diversion of siphoned astronomical sums of this sovereign fund by former Prime Minister Najib Razak.
” Need a big broom “
m. Saddiq, a Malay whose grandparents are from Muar, is the symbol of the mini-revolution in progress in Malaysian policy: Minister of Youth and Sports between 2018 and 2020, he is at the origin of the amendment Constitutional adopted under the government formed by the Alliance of Hope (Pakatan Harapan), victorious in the 2018 elections, and led by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, the old leader of Malaysia in the 1990s joined the opposition and fired of his retirement at 92 years old. The young minister had been asked by UNDI18, a movement created in 2016 by a Malaysian student in the United States, Qyira Yusri, to lower the age of the right to vote. “I have been accused several times of being an agent of the West. The conservative status quo is very difficult to shake up in Malaysia”, explains, to the world, the young woman.
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