Early analyses point to entry of restive Gen Z voters as one of the reasons behind three incumbent state governments falling, something political parties in Malaysia should take note of.
Parkaran Kutty
Make no mistake, Gen Z voters are set to make a difference in elections in any part of the world. These are people born approximately between 1997 and 2012.
They should be aged 14 to 29 now. They are the generation that grew up with the social media playing a significant part in their lives. This is often thought to be a restive generation which has stopped reading newspapers and generally has no patience for long lectures or reading lengthy articles. They have a short attention spell.
Most of them were either not born yet or were infants when the current leaders came into active politics. They prefer short messages with effective video campaigns. Most important, they don’t seem to care about past successes of the governments. These were, to a great extent, manifested in the recent five state elections in India whose results were announced yesterday.
The ruling governments in the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Keralam, and West Bengal in the north were thrown out convincingly. The government in Assam was retained together with the Union Territory of Puducherry.
Among the three, it was the 44.8 million voters in Tamil Nadu who caused a political tsunami by voting out two-term incumbents Dravida Munetra Kazhagam or DMK. It just took a two-year-old party led by one of the most popular Tamil actor C Joseph Vijay, fondly known as Vijay, to send a strong message that change is the only constant.
The young voters, who were said to be worried about their present, and wanting a better future without corrupt practices, sent a message so strong that incumbent chief minister MK Stalin lost his seat.
Vijay has got a huge following in Malaysia not only from the Indians but also Malays who enjoy his movies that mostly feature him as the savior of the downtrodden Indians. A script that saw him sweep to power in a country which is obsessed with the movie industry.
Some analysts say the under- 30s, fatigued by the DMK-AIDMK binary, which is all they have seen, found in actor Vijay’s Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam (TVK) a new vehicle that could drive down the road to change. According to an analysis on the polls campaign, Vijay has spoken considerably less in rallies compared to Stalin.
He told his social media team to go an overdrive and told the young ones to convince their family members to vote for change. His party won 108 of the 236 seats at stake. It’s in the process of getting support from a few other winning parties to get his magic 118 number. His main rival DMK was far behind with only 59 seats compared to 167 in the last election. Vijay is on the way to become a real chief minister with help of other parties to join his coalition.
The charismatic actor-turned politician’s TVK was also a significant disruptor with its young and inexperienced candidates being spoilers in a huge number of seats that DMK had won in the past.
Of course, his cinematic aura was a reason too with his cult-like fan base but others who had tried in the last four decades never made it to the top. The last film stars who led Tamil Nadu were the famous MG Ramachandran or MGR, and his partner M Jeyalalitha who took over from him after his death in 1987.
Drawing a parallel in Malaysia
So what can Malaysian political parties learn from this tectonic shift in Indian politics? Plenty, if you ask me.
With an estimated 40,000 new voters being added to the electoral roll each month in Malaysia, there could be an estimated three million Gen Z voters in the next general election (GE16). Add the young ones already in the list, the number could be at least six to seven million form this age group. This is significant enough to change results.
But the Malaysian parties do not have a “Vijay” in their midst to carry the message of change. PKR’s Rafizi Ramli and Umno’s Khairy Jamaluddin could have this aura to an extent but it won’t be enough to displace the government. Khairy’s re-entry into Umno has kind of disappointed the young voters too.
Rafizi’s plan of launching a third force next month to break the two-coalition system in Malaysian politics like what Vijay did in Tamil Nadu looks tough, given the race and religious factors that will have a bearing in GE16.
However, a significant change is very likely as the Gen Z voters will not look at the past successes of the current political parties. Most were not even born when the current crop of leaders came into the political limelight. But they should study the outcome in Indian state elections. There is a lesson to be learnt about incumbents falling so easily.
Parkaran Kutty (parkarank@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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