The Malaysian Insight

DISTRUST of politicians, general lack of interest, and sense of helplessness are the reasons for the low number of youth voters in Peninsular Malaysia.
 
Seven out of 10 young Malaysians polled said they found politicians to be untrustworthy and the main cause of Malaysia’s problems today. More than half believe politicians do not care about the people.
 
Of the 604 young people polled recently by Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research, 70% said they did not care for politics. A same number felt they had no influence over government policy-making. 

The results of the the survey “Perception of Economy, Leadership and Current Issues” were released tonight.
 
Among those not registered to vote, 53% said they were too busy to register, 30% said their vote would not make a difference, and 17% said they did not know how to register.

Merdeka Centre programme director and co-founder Ibrahim Suffian said the political culture in the country, which did not encourage open criticism, was one of the reasons young voters lacked interest in politics.

“The political culture doesn’t encourage questioning of critical polices and issues and in many ways disempower our people, especially our young, and it shapes the political thoughts that they have going into the future 

“Youths are generally not allowed to talk about politics in university  campuses, and in classrooms youths are not encouraged to talk about it. A lot of things that politicians talk about have very little to do with them,” he said. 

Ibrahim said many voters were already familiar with issues like the 1Malaysia Development Bhd financial scandal, and they were more concerned about issues of  good governance, the rule of law, and corruption.

“I’m not saying we should play it (1MDB)  down. But it’s not going to win new support because most people already aware of it. I think people are not stupid; they are well connected; they know what is right and wrong. 

“They will weigh their options, but the bigger issue is how important is this, compared to the other things that will drive them to the ballot box and make them choose one party over the other.”

Indians show lower interest
 
In the poll, Indian youngsters showed the least interest in politics at 75%, followed by Malays (71%), and Chinese (62%). Unsurprisingly, the disinterest was higher among non-voters (79%), compared with voters (64%).
 
Among Indian youth, 77% believed public officials did not care much about what young people thought, followed by Chinese (75%) and Malays (66%). More non-voters (71%) also agreed that public officials did not care about them, compared with voters (67%).
 
Six out of 10 Indians felt that politicians did not care for the people, compared with Chinese (55%) and Malays (53%). Again, the negative feeling was higher among non-voters (58%) than among voters (51%).

However, more Indian youth (40%) believed politicians were trustworthy compared with Malays (29%) and Chinese (20%). Voters (30%) said they trusted their politicians marginally more than non-voters (25%).

Of the total respondents, 66% thought politicians were the root cause of the country’s problems. 

Of the three races polled, 81% of Chinese youth blamed politicians for the country’s problems, followed by Malays (61%) and Indians (56%).

The survey was conducted in 165 constituencies in 12 states on the peninsula from August 3 to 8.
 
The 604 respondents were made up of 68% Malays, 23% Chinese and 9% Indians.

Of those in the 21-30 age bracket, 60% worked in the private sector; 15% were self-employed; 11% were students or unemployed; 8% worked in the public sector or with government linked corporations; and 6% were housewives.
 
Of those surveyed, 32% had a monthly household income of less than RM2,000; 37% between RM2,001-RM3,999; 14% between RM4,000-RM6,999; 8% were above RM7,000; and 9% had no income. – September 19, 2017.