The curious case of divergence between Malaysia’s (Malay) and Thai youths

From Thai Enquirer

by Kevin Zhang and Napon Jatusripitak

Since Malaysia implemented UNDI-18 last year which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, it is apparent that young Malays are turning towards the conservative Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition. PN comprised primarily of the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), which champion for Islam to play a greater role in society, and the Malaysian Indigenous United Party (Bersatu), which seeks to maintain, if not enhance, the existing race-based privileges for ethnic Malays. As Malaysian voters are segregated into various streams in polling booths based on their age, the broad voting patterns for youths can be observed. Based on the available stream data, PN was the most popular coalition nationally among Malay youths, followed by Barisan Nasional (BN) and Pakatan Harapan (PH). The Malay youth vote played a vital role for PN (green) to expand into seats which were previously held by BN (blue) and to a smaller extent PH (red) in the recent 2022 General Election (GE2022). 

Map 1: Peninsular Malaysia parliament seats before GE2022 (left) and after GE2022 (right) 
*Vacant seats due to death of incumbent MP. Sabah and Sarawak are excluded due to different electoral dynamics and coalitions contesting. 

In contrast, Thai youths are gravitating towards the Move Forward Party (MFP), which campaigns on a progressive platform with an anti-establishment undertone. Its core policies include welfare policies, protection of LGBTQ+ rights, military conscription reform, and amendment of the lese majeste law. The MFP is the reincarnation of the now-defunct Future Forward Party (FFP), led by Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, a wealthy and charismatic figure with an overwhelming social media presence and popularity among the youth.

The greenhorn FFP arose on the back of overwhelming youth support in the 2019 General Election. In 2019, the FFP secured third place with 6.2 million votes, defying predictions by even the most informed experts. Although support for the FFP among Thai youths cannot be observed directly since polling in Thailand is not segregated based on age, this conclusion can be extrapolated from advance vote where FFP performed incredibly well among the outstation university students vote. After the Constitutional Court dissolved the FFP in February 2020, the party’s followers, many of whom are high school and university students, took to the streets to voice their grievances and resentment against the political system they saw as unjust. This youth-led social movement has created a powerful, progressive force that the MFP is now banking on for the upcoming general election scheduled in a weeks’ time.

Continues at

https://www.thaienquirer.com/49525/the-curious-case-of-divergence-between-malaysias-malay-and-thai-youths/