KUCHING: Was the passing of the law to give youths under 18 the right to cast their votes during elections in the country done in haste?
Youth, Sports and Entrepreneur Development Datuk Seri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah feels it was.
“When that Bill was passed in parliament on Jan 3, I felt that it was done in a bit of a rush.
“We should have had more ways to let the youth adapt first such as by having a school syllabus or civic syllabus for Forms 3,4 and 5 especially on nation building,” he said to reporters after officiating at the 2022 Sarawak Youth Development Meeting here today.
“Most youths do not know about this (nation building) and as such there may be unscrupulous parties that take advantage of that.”
But now that it has become law our role is to guide 18-year-olds to be responsible voters as there is a lot of distorted news on social media, on WhatsApp, on Twitter, he added.
Karim disclosed that the number of voters has also increased due to the Undi18 law, pointing out that there are currently about 600,000 voters in the age category just for Sarawak.
“On a rough scale, the increase of voters is one third … but whether they will come out to vote or not is another matter ,” he said, pointing to a dip in voter turnout in the Johor state election.
On the coming PBB triennial general meeting, Karim urged all concerned to not rock the boat as there was still a “feel good” sentiment among members and component parties after the victory in the last state election.
He reiterated that the top party leadership posts will not be contested as it was already a very good team and urged party members to rally behind them.
Karim expects the convention to be interesting as the debates will be on state rights, sovereignty and how to protect the territory and will be more far sighted compared to the debates held during the past conventions.
