……… for the last 50 years means the voters, young and old, want a continuation of the political gerontocracy to bring them forward.
A future where AI will dominate the world.
Malaysia cannot say we opt out of it.
The world is rapidly shifting toward an AI-centric era, yet a significant portion of today's political leadership struggles to grasp the sheer scope, speed, and transformative power of these technologies.
Most politicians view AI as a simple "software upgrade" rather than a foundational restructuring of society, making it difficult to regulate or leverage responsibly.
There is already a widening disparity where entrenched legacy procedures frequently bottleneck the speed of digital transformation in this country.
Political processes—such as drafting and passing legislation—are inherently slow and deliberate while AI advancements scale at an unprecedented rate, often rendering proposed laws obsolete before they are even enacted.
Doubt many of the present crop of aging politicians understand the need for internal coherence and the capacity of the bureaucracy both, to forge coalitions between bureaucrats, businessmen, and scientists and to discipline domestic companies and assesses efforts to foster technological upgrading in the semiconductor and electric vehicle industries.
Protecting labor markets and addressing potential job losses remain massive hurdles for these aging politicians trying to maintain social stability.
What the aging politicians are accustomed to saying - Malaysia could not afford to become complacent as technology advanced.
Full stop.
Nothing happened or if initiated, proceeds.
Are any of the aging politicians aware that in the the latest World Bank GovTech Maturity Index (GTMI), Malaysia outperforms Asean and OECD peers on core government’s digital infrastructure which has enabled 70% of agencies to migrate to a shared, scalable system—boosting efficiency, transparency and resilience but adoption across ministries were uneven thus diluting these gains?
The GTMI report cited the limited inter-ministerial collaboration, parallel systems, legacy protocols and uneven adherence to enterprise architecture standards that are hindering service integration and curb the impact of shared platforms.
The report went on and summarise that without streamlined processes and interoperable data, firms face delays and higher compliance costs, undermining the very competitiveness gains that digital reforms were meant to deliver.
Ask yourself are today's political leaders, many of whom are older than ever leading this country, understand and lead the younger generation well into the next phase of the digital economy and the daily needs of the younger generations who will bear the consequences of their policies?
That the aging crop of leaders are equipped for the future and possess the mental bandwidth to tackle issues like digital infrastructure, economic sovereignty, and data accountability?
Experts in neuropsychology like the University of Cambridge note that cognitive flexibility—the ability to adapt and solve new, complex problems under pressure—typically declines with age.
The ability of a leader to shepherd future generations into the digital age does not strictly come down to a biological age, but rather their mental agility and their capacity to embrace, rather than delegate, technological transformation.
So dear fellow Malaysians and the young voters, the choice is yours to make.
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