The 12-day meeting of July 2019 Parliament ends today with two great feats – the Constitution Amendment Bill to lower the voting age from 21 to 18 years and the first reading of the long-awaited Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) Bill.

The unanimous parliamentary support for the constitutional amendment to lower the voting age from 21 to 18 years is a historic occasion for Malaysia and a wish come true for me 48 years after my first raising the issue in Parliament in 1971.

In 1971, when I raised the issue in an adjournment speech, the countries which had already given the right to vote to their 18-year-olds included the United Kingdom, Turkey, Poland, Canada and Germany.

The countries which had lowered the voting age of 21 to 18 since my speech in Parliament on the issue in 1971 included the Netherlands, United States, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Philippines, Australia, France, New Zealand, Italy, Trinidad and Tobago, Denmark, Spain, Peru, Belgium, India, Switzerland, Austria, Estonia, Hong Kong, Liechtenstein, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia and Japan.

If the DAP is a racist Chinese political party which dominated the Pakatan Harapan government, as is preached by leaders of an irresponsible political alliance of klepto-theocracy, the DAP would have stopped the constitutional amendment in its tracks, as there would be a greater increase of Malay voters as compared to Chinese voters because of the demographic composition in the country. Read the rest of this entry »