PETALING JAYA: An early registration deadline for postal votes could increase the turnout in the upcoming six state elections provided the Election Commission (EC) fixes the process to collect these votes, say political observers.
PETALING JAYA: They were dubbed the kingmakers in the lead-up to the 15th General Election (GE15) last month, but when the dust had settled and the ballots counted, the six million new voters had made a different type of impact.
when you go into a tough economic situation next year, and we are facing a tough economic situation globally already, so i think that makes it a challenge. but the silver lining is we have had an example of a confidence and supply agreement that was done before between the government and opposition to provide some level of stability. i do believe that might be a model that might be explored to ensure that there is better government stability and to make sure there are some tough decisions, especially in regards to subsidies, in regards to certain types of funding. that was tharma pillai, a malaysian youth movement co founder, speaking to us a little earlier. scientists have discovered the true ferocity of a huge volcanic eruption off the coast of tonga injanuary. research ships from britain and new zealand have finished mapping the area around the volcano. they found flows of debris stretching at least 80 kilometres across the sea bed.
that was jonathan head reporting on that story for us. a little earlier, i spoke to tharma pillai, co founder of undi18, a malaysian youth movement that successfully advocated constitutional amendment to reduce the minimum voting age. here is what he had to say about the significance of the youth vote. i think it s been incredibly important because with the implementation of the lowered voter age together with automatic voter registration, you saw a massive increase in voters, 5.8 million, which increased the total percentage of electorate by 40%. in any measure, 40% increase in your voter numbers is a huge change in democracy, but even more important was that it increased the percentage of youth voters, and of course electorally in malaysia, we consider youth category from 18 40. and this bloc of voters now represent 51% of the total number of voters in malaysia, so essentially the youth vote
if he can t form a government, then we will see, probably given the age he s at, one of the giants of malaysian politics exiting the stage. tharma pillai is co founder of undi18, a malaysian youth movement that successfully advocated constitutional amendment to reduce the minimum voting age. here is what he had to say about the significance of the youth vote. i think it s been incredibly important because with the implementation of the lowered voter age together with automatic voter registration, you saw a massive increase in voters, 5.8 million, which increased the total percentage of electorate by a0%. in any measure, 40% increase in your voter numbers is a huge change in democracy, but even more important was that it increased