Young voters will vote for the government: Salleh

PETALING JAYA: Young voters, who were once critical of Barisan Nasional, are expected to cast their ballots in favour of the government in the next general election, said Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak (pix).
Salleh said he came to such a conclusion based on the results from the ballot boxes during the two by-elections in Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar held simultaneously last year.
He added the main factor for BN’s massive victory in the by-elections was due to young voters from Saluran (streams) 3 to 5. In the Malaysia election system, the stream 1 is usually reserved for old voters.
“In Sungai Besar, there was a change of support of young Chinese voters by 23%, from 15% in 13th General Election to 38% in the by-election,” he said, adding that the same increase could also be seen in the trend of young Malay voters.
“The same thing happened in Kuala Kangsar where there was a sway of young voters to BN by 18%,” he said in a posting on his blog.
“In GE13, 41.98% of voters in the same age category were critical towards BN. Now the trend of support has changed,” he said.
During the political tsunami in the 2013 general election, BN could barely defend both the Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar parliamentary constituencies by majority votes of 399 and 1,082 respectively.
Salleh noted that almost half of the 18 million eligible voters in the next general election would consist of voters from the age of 21 to 40 years old.
He outlined several factors that led to the sway of young votes towards the government, among them were that the youths felt more confident to be under BN rule.
He also attributed the changes in youth voting patterns to the opposition coalition, which according to him was only interested to be in power.
“These factors had encouraged the young voters to remain with BN. They are confident that the country’s future is more secured if BN continues to rule Malaysia,” he said.