SIBU: The move by Pakatan Harapan government to lower the voting from 21 to 18 and automatic registration of these voters, has been described as “brave and big”.
Sibu MP Oscar Ling in a press conference yesterday said it was a brave decision as young voters generally are more anti-establishment.
“We don’t know their voting tendency but generally young voters are more anti-establishment,” he said.
If the proposal comes through, it would see an increase of voters from the current 15 million to 23 million in 2023, he said.
Ling also foresaw that the entry of young voters would result in the change of the country’s political landscape.
“We might see younger candidates in future elections. Currently there are a lot of old candidates,” he said.
Ling went on to call for a review of the redelineation exercise that was carried out before the last general election.
He said a review was necessary as there were areas with low voters of about 20,000 while some have over 100,000 voters.
The difference in the number of voters between constituencies should be less than 15 per cent, he pointed out.
He also wanted the election commission to redraw the boundary of constituencies for fairer voter representation.
“We need to redraw the boundary so as to avoid the cropping up of racial and religious issues. For example, there are constituencies with a high concentration of one particular race and religion,” he said.
