Will young Malaysians play a key role in next election through swing votes?

Muhammad Syafiq, a 25-year-old banker from Kuala Lumpur, has started noticing something recently that felt like “real politics” compared with the soft sell of an election campaign poster at train stations in the Malaysian capital.“One government programme I think is pretty solid is the People’s Income Initiative, or IPR [Inisiatif Pendapatan Rakyat], where small vendors use vending machines to sell food and drinks,” he told This Week in Asia, pointing to what he described as affordable automated kiosks placed around train stations.“It’s very practical, convenient and helpful for us,” he said.Syafiq’s experience is the type of tangible improvements in daily life that many young voters say they have come to expect of the government, four years after the electorate was expanded to include millions of younger Malaysians through a wider age band.Malaysia’s Undi18 reform lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 and introduced automatic voter registration ahead of the 2022 general election. The changes added about 5.8 million new voters to the rolls, according to campaigners and researchers.Campaigning among the rival candidates that year was noticeably different, with political parties leaning heavily on social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram to target first-time voters.The election delivered Malaysia’s first hung parliament as no coalition managed to secure a clear majority. It also vaulted Perikatan Nasional (PN), driven by the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), into a powerful Malay-majority bloc. PAS swept Kelantan and Terengganu, emerging as the single biggest party in parliament.