KUALA LUMPUR – There is little surprise that younger voters chose Perikatan Nasional (PN) in the recent Kuala Kubu Baharu by-election, analysts say, as the young typically vote for the opposition.
The results also show that Pakatan Harapan (PH) has yet to develop an effective strategy to regain the support of younger voters, whether through social media or with a narrative that is relevant to them.
Analyst Prof Azmi Hassan said trends in Malaysia’s recent general elections showed that the young tended to vote for the opposition, as seen in their growing support for PH while it was the opposition before it won the general election in 2018 (GE14), and their support for PN in the last national polls in 2022.
“If we look at the GE14 results, young people chose PH, which was the opposition at that time.
“Likewise in the 15th general election (GE15 in 2022), the young chose PN, which is the opposition. So, it proves that young people’s tastes are more oppositional,” the geostrategist and senior fellow of the Nusantara Academy for Strategic Research said.
He was commenting on findings by Institut Darul Ehsan (IDE) that showed PN was the preferred choice for voters aged 40 and below in Kuala Kubu Baharu last week.
IDE senior research manager, Khairul Arifin Mohd Munir, said PH needed to think of an effective strategy to regain the support of young voters.
This could be done by exploring more effective use of social media, and ways to communicate with this group of voters.
“There are some ministers in PH who think that social media is not important because they say there is more important work to be done. So they did not use that opportunity to convey information to the people in simple language.
“When a policy is made, they implement it. There is no denying that the policy is good but it is not clearly explained. So that’s the problem now – insufficient communication with the people,” he said.
He noted how PN had obtained 63% of votes from those aged between 18 and 24 in Kuala Kubu Baharu, even though the turnout of that group was the lowest at around 53%.
Noor Nirwandy Mat Noordin, a security and political analyst at Universiti Teknologi Mara, also said it was time PH revamped its outreach to younger voters and suggested presenting facts in a more exciting manner that appealed to emotions.
In the case of the Kuala Kubu Baharu poll, however, he said that many were not excited about voting because it was just one of Selangor’s 56 state seats, and the outcome would not change the state government.
“As such, it may have lacked appeal to the young voters. It (the by-election) did not contain elements that would have made young people feel as if their participation was required, or that voting would have had an impact on them.”
He said he believed voters aged 41 and above chose PH as older groups favoured stability, maturity and the coalition’s inclusive political culture.
In the by-election last Saturday, PH candidate Pang Sock Tao won with a majority of 3,869 votes, defeating three other contenders: Khairul Azhari Saut (PN), Hafizah Zainudin (Parti Rakyat Malaysia) and Nyau Ke Xin (independent).
Pang, 31, a former press secretary to Housing and Local Government Minister Nga Kor Ming, obtained 14,000 votes, thus defending the seat DAP has held since the 2013 general election. – May 15, 2024