KUCHING: A new party to represent the aspirations of youth is just a myth, opines political analyst Dr Lee Kuok Tiung.
“Almost every party has its youth wing. At various levels of government governance, the younger generation is involved in various ways be it youth councils, youth schemes and so on,” he explained.
Lee was commenting on former Parti Sedar Rakyat Sarawak (Sedar) Supreme Council member Jocky Jim Ungka’s remarks that Sarawak needed to have a new party that represented the voice of the youth in the 15th General Election.
“(Parti Bangsa Malaysia president) Larry Sng is an example of a young leader who was pushed as a candidate at a young age. Of course, there are certainly various factors to be a candidate, including family background.
“Most importantly for a new party to establish itself is to list its goals clearly and find individuals of calibre to lead the party or else just become a ‘mosquito party’ that has no impact. To attract the interest of the young people also needs strategy.”
Elaborating further, Lee added that manipulating social media to give the impression that a party is popular among the younger generation was easy, but winning votes was another matter.
“Young people have so many different needs and desires, have they done their research to understand the aspirations of the young people?
“Sometimes we talk too much on the #Undi18 without understanding the real situation. How many new voters are between 18 and 20 years old?
“Expected only 1.2 million out of the 5.8 million new voters are from #Undi18 bloc of 18 to 20 years old.
“Majority of them are 21 and above. Automatic registration that causes the eligible voter in the electoral roll increase dramatically by 40 per cent from current 15.8 million to 21.2 million.”
Lee also predicted that those who did not want or wish to register as voters in the past would not turn up to vote in the polls. “We can expect a very low voter turnout in GE15 due to the automatic registration.”
