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PAGOH: Lowering the voting age to 18 is not something the Perikatan Nasional government fears, and it is the Electoral Commission (EC) that is responsible for implementing it, says Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
The prime minister said he had recently met with EC President Datuk Abdul Ghani Salleh and accepted his explanation on the matter.
Muhyiddin dismissed allegations that Perikatan was influencing the delay.
“This is not about the Perikatan government, but about the EC and its efforts to solve the problem.
“We are doing everything we can to help, but it is difficult during the ongoing pandemic,” he said.
Muhyiddin said Abdul Ghani told him that the earliest date it could be implemented was September 1, 2022.
“If they can’t do it, how can we force them? I accepted the EC’s explanation, but I hope they can speed it up,” he said after launching the Pagoh Special Economic Zone here on Saturday (March 27).
Muhyiddin added that Abdul Ghani said that the implementation of an automatic voter registration (AVR) process also involved other bodies.
“The Department of National Registration … must verify the MyKads and voter addresses and this is a huge workload involving millions of voters … where it could not argue.
He also said that he believed that the majority of the youth support the current government.
“It’s not that the government is afraid that once young people sign up, they won’t support Perikatan.
“Faster is better, but what can we do? We have to be realistic and not political about it,” he said.
On July 16, 2019, the bill was passed to lower the voting age from 21 to 18, as well as to implement AVR.
But on Thursday (March 25), the EC had announced that lowering the minimum voting age and the AVR could only be done before September 1, 2022.
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