KUCHING: Pro Reformist 1998 Sarawak wants the lowering of Malaysian voting age from 21 to 18 to be done in tandem with automatic registration of all citizens aged 18 and older.
Although its chairman Iswardy Morni is skeptical of the move (in fact he called it a gimmick), he reckoned that if it is not coupled with the proper mechanism it will not work.
He insisted that if the government seriously intends to lower the voting age as practised in other countries, it should first implement the automatic registration.
Not doing so would cause registration bottlenecks due to various reasons including the lack of manpower.
Currently, political parties are not allowed to help register new voters. As such, he urged the government to re-allow political parties to become voter registration agents.
Sarawak could possibly look at 80,000 new eligible voters aged 18 to 21 for the next state election.
This means that up to 1.5 million more voters will be eligible to vote in the 15th general election if the proposed constitutional amendment to lower voting age is passed.
“Let’s say that the state election is going to be held in 2021; people who register themselves less than six months from the announced date of the election will not be eligible to cast their votes.
“We have roughly two years to go. If we minus the six months, I don’t think we have the mechanism and manpower to register all the voters in time. And that this is excluding those who are above the age of 18 that have yet to be registered,” he told the New Sarawak Tribune yesterday.
Iswardy pointed out that most youngsters are inclined to be anti-establishment as they look on as outsiders or sideliners at the various political parties.
“They are free and more policy oriented. Because of this, the government needs to tackle them or they will cause some problems in the next general election,” he said.
