GE15: Youth voters have yet to decide

13 Nov 2022 12:55pm

Rows of political flags throughout the capital for the GE15 campaign.

SHAH ALAM – Youth voters from 18 to 20-years old are still puzzled over who to vote for in the upcoming General Election (GE15).

Ilham Centre Executive Director Hisommudin Bakar said this was among the findings of a preliminary research conducted to know which party or coalition could possibly emerge victorious in the upcoming polls.

" From our findings many of the young voters are still undecided eventhrough there has been a week of campaigning - we have not finalised the 222 seats of Parliament yet “They still wanted to wait, see, and evaluate. In this final sprint, it is still open to any party or candidate to win the hearts of those who still had an open heart,” he said.

He said the remaining six days to campaign was a excellent opportunity for parties and candidates to win the hearts of voters.

Hisomuddin added at this time, candidates could strongly influence voters in the final sprint as voters would focus more on on the candidate’s ability rather than the party.

" They will choose candidates that they think will be able to represent them best in Parliament and the candidates that are willing to fight for their concerns regarding issues in their constituencies “Any candidates that would be able to offer that I feel will gain the advantage from the voters who haven’t decided,” he said.

He explained that based on the observations made towards the impact of the campaigns ran by all parties in social media as well as on the field, Perikatan Nasional (PN) and Pakatan Harapan (PH) were expected to gain advantage of voters who were still on the fence.

He said from the campaign war in social media, PN was seen as being more aggressive in comparison to BN and PH which might be an added value in gaining support for the coalition, “PH has been relying a lot on talks ( ceramah) that would be spread on social media with hopes that it would translate into votes from their supporters." “Umno and BN have certain advantages. They move with the strength of their party members and use the approach of group talks ( ceramah),” he said.