Govt Puts A Hold On Plans To Lower Legal Voting Age To 18

If you're 18 years old and you just can't wait to exercise your voting rights after yesterday's news about the lowering of legal voting age to 18, well, you need to hold on for a bit.

That's because according to a report by Bernama, the government has withdrawn a tabled bill to reduce the voting age on Wednesday (10 July).

Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad told the news agency that they withdrew the bill to add two provisions: lowering the legal age of voting to 18, and to introduce an automatic voter registration.

“At the first reading (of the bill), we only considered lowering the voting age to 18 but not the automatic voter registration. There was a request to provide for automatic voter registration and lower the eligible age of electoral candidates,” he was quoted as saying.

The ammended version of the bill will reportedly be tabled on Thursday (11 July).

Earlier, Bernama reported that Dr M has agreed on the Cabinet’s decision to allow youths in the country to vote at the age of 18.

The Pakatan Harapan (PH) Presidential Council also agreed for those who have turned 18 to be automatically registered as voters.

The report, quoting Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, also mentioned that a meeting would be held with leaders of political parties on the issue.

“Finally we have reached an agreement where all the three constitutional amendments to be made on Undi 18, automatic voter registration (for those who have reached the age of 18), and reducing the age of candidacy to 18,” he said.