{"id":8607,"date":"2021-03-12T12:36:49","date_gmt":"2021-03-12T04:36:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=8607"},"modified":"2021-03-12T12:36:51","modified_gmt":"2021-03-12T04:36:51","slug":"i-am-a-staunch-supporter-of-undi-18-saifuddin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=8607","title":{"rendered":"‘I am a staunch supporter of Undi 18’ – Saifuddin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PEKAN, March 12 — Communications and Multimedia Minister\u00a0Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah stressed today that he is a strong supporter of the Undi 18 implementation (lowering the voting age to 18), describing it as an \u2018age of maturity\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saifuddin, who is the Member of Parliament of Indera Mahkota, also described those who do not trust youths and do not support Undi 18 as being \u201coutdated\u201d and politically immature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe always don\u2019t trust our youths but we want their support. We must have faith in them. I am definitely a strong supporter and I am very loud (on this). I have strong trust in youths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe say they are not ready but we do nothing to educate them. Eighteen is an age of maturity under the law\u2026\u00a0(they) can drive, can enter into contracts and\u00a0won\u2019t be charged as juveniles if they commit crimes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"undi<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Saifuddin told reporters this after attending the Malaysia Prihatin Programme here, which was also attended by National Film Development Corporation Malaysia (Finas) chairman Zakaria Abdul Hamid, Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) of Pahang director Zahari Ismail and state Information Department director Mohd Salmun Mustafa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saifuddin, who is the former president of the Malaysian Youth Council, said he had been championing the idea of educating young people to vote for a long time, including once presenting the idea of students being taught to select prefects through an election system but many did not agree with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He hoped that Undi 18 could be implemented in the coming general election as he was confident the Election Commission (EC) was prepared to handle it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI understand that there are any constraints, such as requiring it (Undi 18) to be passed by state legislative assemblies for amendments\u2026 but I am confident this can be overcome when the state assemblies reconvene,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In another development, Saifuddin, who is also the Pahang Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) chairman, said the party had started work to face the coming general election, besides strengthening relations with PAS and Gerakan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRelations between Bersatu, PAS and Gerakan at the grassroots level look to be very good and the first meeting on the formation of the Pahang Perikatan Nasional (PN), InsyaAllah, will be held on March 26 following the unofficial meeting held last week,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commenting on the Malaysia Prihatin Programme, Saifuddin said that throughout the four days of \u2018touring\u2019 eight districts in Pahang, he received excellent feedback from local leaders regarding issues like emergency, COVID-19 vaccine and Internet connectivity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

— BERNAMA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PEKAN, March 12 — Communications and Multimedia Minister\u00a0Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah stressed today that he is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[524,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nation","category-politics"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Screen-Shot-2021-03-12-at-12.34.35.png",581,321,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Screen-Shot-2021-03-12-at-12.34.35-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Screen-Shot-2021-03-12-at-12.34.35-300x166.png",300,166,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Screen-Shot-2021-03-12-at-12.34.35.png",581,321,false],"large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Screen-Shot-2021-03-12-at-12.34.35.png",581,321,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Screen-Shot-2021-03-12-at-12.34.35.png",581,321,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Screen-Shot-2021-03-12-at-12.34.35.png",581,321,false],"newsium-slider-full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Screen-Shot-2021-03-12-at-12.34.35.png",581,321,false],"newsium-featured":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Screen-Shot-2021-03-12-at-12.34.35.png",581,321,false],"newsium-medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Screen-Shot-2021-03-12-at-12.34.35.png",581,321,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"Nation<\/a> Politics<\/a>","tag_info":"Politics","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8607"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8609,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8607\/revisions\/8609"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}