Pakatan scrambles to woo young voters

By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal

Rafizi said PR parties’ youth wings have drifted away from young voters. — file pic

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 14 — With snap polls rumoured to be called this year, the federal opposition is racing to secure the support of the youngest voter segment, one which it claims was being “indoctrinated” by the ruling administration from a tender age. Pakatan Rakyat (PR) officials claimed young Malay voters are leaning towards Barisan Nasional (BN) as a result of what it terms indoctrination from National Civics Bureau (BTN) and National Service programmes.
PR officials said that the coalition also risks losing the support of young voters between the age of 19 to 22 to BN, and that there was currently a “gap” between PR’s youth leadership and student leaders in public universities.
Opposition leaders also feel that PR’s youth wings were currently too focused on “national-based issues,” stressing the need for the coalition to engage more with students, particularly those from the Malay community.
The Malaysian Insider understands that one PR party, PKR, has started brainstorming sessions to address these issues and find long-term measures to counter BN’s success in the crucial voter segment.
“I think it is quite clear that youths, students especially young Malays between the age of 19 to 22, are at an age where their political awareness is quite low,” PKR strategy chief Rafizi Ramli told The Malaysian Insider.
“This is a cause for concern on our side (PR) because many of these students in this age group go through national service, national civics bureau (BTN) and go through the University and University Colleges Act (UUCA) and become indoctrinated to support BN... which is why they (BN) defend the national service, BTN at all costs,” he said.
PR has consistently blamed the BTN courses for promoting a race-based culture in Malaysian, using it a fodder for many political talks and events.
Rafizi claimed BTN had been conducting courses for students as young as 15.
He noted that unlike Malays, non-Malay students were exposed to slightly more independent sources of information in the form of the Chinese media.

The 19-22 age group had voted against Nurul Izzah in Election 2008.

“We are concerned about the age groups that have not yet entered universities or who have just entered public universities... by the time they graduate we can even [point] out the ones who support BN and PR, it’s just this 19-22 age group which is a real challenge to us,” said Rafizi. According to the PKR leader, PR needed to revive its ties with student leaders and activists in order to counter BN’s popularity with young students.
“The latest trend is quite positive as there is a revival of student activism.  BN will cut these youths off, which is why we have to engage with these groups.
“Due to constraints in place by the mainstream media and UUCA, the only way to reach out to university students is through student representatives, where we have to step up discussions with these groups,” said Rafizi.
He, however, lamented that there was a noticeable “distance” between PR youth wings and student leaders, blaming it on BN’s marginalisation of the opposition’s presence within public universities.
“We have a weakness, because currently there is a gap between our youth leadership and the student leadership... Our presence in campuses is too small, most probably because the PKR youth leadership, PAS and DAP have been focusing on national issues more than student issues.
“Because of the repressive laws in public universities, we have abandoned the student groups for quite a while and this cannot go on,” added Rafizi.
Students in public universities are currently barred from taking part in politics, although BN leaders have also voiced out a need to amend existing provisions on the matter.
PKR vice-president and Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar said that a Pakatan Youth Leaders’ conference was currently in the works, adding that details will be given before the end of this month.
“The PR secretariat has planned a session with students to address the needs of the youth, as well as ignite their interests in the policies of PR,” Nurul Izzah told The Malaysian Insider.
The lawmaker said that a breakdown of Lembah Pantai’s Election 2008 results showed that the youngest voters, those between the ages of 19 to 22, had voted for Umno.
“Young voters are impressionable, they are out for grabs, we have to try and include them in as many of Pakatan’s programmes as we can,” she said.
Nurul Izzah said that opposition mouthpieces like Harakah daily, Suara Keadilan and The Rocket had regularly covered issues on students’ interests, and not just about national politics.
“Suara Keadilan even has a segment on local university issues, such as reports on the pricing of bus fares in campuses,” said the PKR vice-president.
DAP socialist youth (DAPSY) chief Anthony Loke said the problem of engaging youths affected BN as much as it did PR, but added that university students should not decide on political affiliations while still studying.
“They (students) should be critical of both sides, and be above partisan politics, so that BN and PR can both improve on fulfilling the needs of potential voters,” Loke told The Malaysian Insider.
Political parties are currently rushing to sign up some 4.3 million unregistered voters.
The DAP has taken the lead while Umno is close behind.
The DAP registered 32.5 per cent of the 169,838 new voters registered between January and June last year.
Umno registered 32.3 per cent of the new voters while PAS registered 22.7 per cent in the same period.