PUTRAJAYA: The proposal to lower voting age from 21 years to 18 and automatic voter registration were principally agreed by political parties from both divides today.
The Election Commission (EC) chairman, Azhar Azizan Harun said 32 parties out 52 registered political parties in the country, had unanimously agreed to both proposals.
The EC had earlier called the 32 political parties today for a closed-door meeting to discuss issues pertaining to voter registration.
“There was no objection to the voting age limit from the political parties.
“However there were several suggestions for the need for more data such as address and telephone numbers for the automatic registration,” he told reporters after the meeting at the EC headquarters here today.
For the automatic registration, although it had been agreed, the policy and the process had to be fully understood before implementation, which would take some time, Azhar said.
“For the voting age limit, we are now waiting for the constitutional amendment after it is brought to the cabinet,” he said.
In June, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had supported the proposal to lower the voting age from 21 to 18.
Dr Mahathir agreed to it because he was of the opinion that Malaysians nowadays were knowledgeable and those in their 18 could make a wise decision about their country’s future.
Among other matters raised at the meeting were update and revision of voter registration, appointment of election assistant registrar (PPP) from political parties to be revived, suggestion for online voter registration and phantom voters.
, Azhar said the EC would analyse the last redelineation exercise to ascertain whether it was conducted in a fair manner and followed provisions of the constitution.
“Because by law, the redelineation exercise can only be conducted every eight years. Therefore we will only analyse how it was carried out the last time. The exercise will not be carried out again as it will be unconstitutional.
“If it was not fair and did not follow the constitution, I will propose the correct away of conducting a redelineation exercise,” he said.
He also said the third quarter Supplementary Electoral Roll (RDPT) for 2018 as on Oct 30, the EC had received 15,933 new voter registration application and 7,044 applications for changing election division.
Azhar also assured that the EC will look into the report by Bersih 2.0 which claimed that PKR has committed six out of 10 offences during the poll in the Port Dickson.
"Yes we have received the report but I have yet to read it," he said.
Previously the electoral watchdog cited that the PKR de-facto leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had, among others, attended a zakat distribution campaign with the Negri Sembilan Menteri Besar, appeared at an awards ceremony for army veterans and a concert with top Malaysian artists.