PETALING JAYA: Voters under the age of 30 are significant in nearly half of the 245 seats up for grabs in the six state elections.
In these areas, they make up at least a third of the electorate.
According to election analyst Dr G. Manimaran, there are at least 106 state seats with an average of between 30% and 40% of their voters below 30 in Selangor, Penang, Negri Sembilan, Terengganu, Kelantan and Kedah.
“With youth voters consisting at least one-third of the electorate in nearly half of the 245 state seats, they can determine who wins in the state polls,” he said.
There are nearly three million voters below the age of 30 in these six states, the bulk of whom are in Selangor (1.125 million), followed by Kedah (550,468), Kelantan (427,071), Penang (298,471), Terengganu (282,678) and Negri Sembilan (236,963).
The seat with the highest number of voters below 30 is Batang Kali in Selangor (39.2%).
Manimaran said these figures indicate that youth voters could play a pivotal factor in many seats and that it is thus crucial for political coalitions to resonate with them.
“Political coalitions need to tailor their manifesto to the youth from different demographics in terms of race and geography, such as whether they live in rural or urban areas,” he added.
Manimaran said in his observation on the first week of the campaign, many voters had already made up their minds – even as political coalitions raced against time to reach out to voters through physical campaigns.
“In the second week of the campaign, political coalitions are now more aggressive, with their schedules getting more hectic.
“Although social media is the main campaigning platform, I think face-to-face campaigns also play an important role,” said Manimaran.
Political pundit Dr Tunku Mohar Tunku Mohd Mokhtar of International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) said the sentiments of young voters are affected by various factors, such as locality, socio-economic levels and academic qualifications.
According to him, young Malay voters in non-urban areas are likely to vote for Perikatan Nasional.
“One of the reasons is that due to their educational experience which is ethnically polarised, these young voters have no experience in relating with people of other ethnic groups,” he said, adding that they are more gullible to propaganda which plays on their insecurity as well as inferiority complex.
“This segment of voters have short attention spans through TikTok,” he said.
Tunku Mohar described youth votes as a “vote bank” that political parties have to penetrate in order to prevail in the state polls.
“Their percentage is significant in affecting electoral outcomes but parties must also realise that the young voters are not a cohesive political unit. Their interests and needs are as diverse as voters of other age groups,” he said.
With polling on Saturday, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia political analyst Suffian Mansor expects campaigns to shift into overdrive.
“It will be tedious, but physical campaigns could influence the fence-sitters,” he said.
> Watch out for Part Two of this series tomorrow
