Undi18 could lessen racism, religious extremism, says DAP rep

 

More youths could be standing as candidates in the next general election with the implementation of Undi18, say Abdul Aziz Bari.

GEORGETOWN: Implementing Undi18 – lowering the minimum voting age to 18 in accordance with the law passed in July 2019 – could lessen the impact of racism and religious extremism in national politics, a DAP assemblyman said.

Abdul Aziz Bari said Malaysian youths are the product of modern times.

“They are not from the old days like the British colonial era,” the Tebing Tinggi assemblyman said during a webinar organised last night.

He also said the initiative could mould youths into becoming future leaders, “which leads to a better Malaysia”.

Aziz, a constitutional law expert, also anticipates that the Dewan Rakyat will be filled with more young MPs after the 15th general election (GE15).

Last week, Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the government will abide by an order to have automatic registration and lower the age of voters to 18 by Dec 31 as ruled by the Kuching High Court earlier this month.

Aziz went on to say that the implementation of Undi18 will pave the way for the reintroduction of local government elections, which he added was a “necessity”.

Ratepayers, he said, should be granted voting powers.

“This could help end the corruption and poor quality of service that has been plaguing local governments due to the local councillors not being elected by the people.”

In 2018, then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said the then Pakatan Harapan (PH) government would not implement local council elections citing the possibility of race-related conflicts in the country. This was despite PH component parties, especially DAP, being strong advocates for local council elections for many decades. - FMT