Commentary: Malaysia's lowering of the voting age and the huge forces fueling the change
In Asia, things have moved much more slowly. The most recent country before Malaysia to decide that 18-year-olds are mature enough to vote, was Japan, in 2016.
THE SOCIO-ECONOMICS OF CHANGE
Many have attributed the resounding changes in Malaysia to political opportunism, optimism and expediencies involved, alongside the commendable activism of certain individuals. But it’s worth considering the socio-economic reasons fueling the gradual but dramatic changes in Malaysia since the 1998 Reformasi movement began.
These include issues such as broad youth activism stimulated by the sacking of Anwar Ibrahim when he was Deputy Prime Minister, increasing urbanity, a higher level of education and the coming of age of the Internet and social media.
Unlike in the West, no obvious baby boom can explain the rise in activism or the successful demand for the lowering of the voting age. Malaysia’s population growth had always been rather strong, ranging from 2.3 per cent to 2.8 per cent before 2000, and falling below 2 per cent only after 2002.
The pattern of increasing urbanity and the higher level of education can be studied together.
Urban dwellers in Malaysia made up 26.8 per cent of the population in 1970, rising quickly to 34.2 per cent in 1980, then to 50.7 per cent by 1991, reaching 62 per cent in 2000. By 2017, three of every four Malaysians were living in an urban setting.
THE POLITICS OF URBAN DWELLERS
Another pattern to consider is that the peninsular states which most strongly opposed the federal government in 1969 were the same states whose voters most clearly opposed central power in 2008.
This dynamic held steady in 2013 and 2018 except for the state of Johor, where opposition support was low in 2008, only to rise quickly over the following two elections to precipitate the fall of the state and the federal government on May 9, 2018.
Significantly, Johor Bahru was the urban centre outside of the Klang Valley that saw the fastest growing population - between 1991 and 2000, it rose by about 280,000 people, from 468,800 to 642,900.
The similarity between 1969 and 2008 strongly suggests that the voting pattern on the peninsula in 1969, which was hastily declared a racial divide, was an urban-rural one, and not merely an ethnic phenomenon. Urbanity has definitely been playing a key role in deciding political preferences over the decades.
The many attempts by the federal government since the 1970s at gerrymandering and malapportionment, including the exercise of making Kuala Lumpur a federal territory separated electorally from Selangor state, in the end functioned merely as delaying tactics.
They were futile when observed across half a century when national development made further urbanisation inevitable.
This article first appeared in Channel New Asia on 31 July 2019.
