How representative is M’sia’s Youth Parliament?

comments     Ong Kian Ming     Published     Updated

MP SPEAKS The inaugural Youth Parliament (Parlimen Belia) recently concluded its first sitting for the year 2015. The establishment of a Youth Parliament is a positive development in our country especially in terms of encouraging debate among the younger generation on important issues and challenges facing the country.

As an example, the representatives of the Youth Parliament were given space to debate the pros and cons of Malaysia’s possible entry into the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) in the recent session.

But the composition of the Youth Parliament itself highlights possible shortcomings in terms of its representativeness. In a parliamentary reply I received on the March 10, 2015, the following statistics were given:

One can immediately see that some groups are obviously under-represented. According to the initial estimates of the number of youth in each state, where each 100,000 youth would be given one representation, Sarawak was supposed to have 10 representatives.

In the actual Youth Parliament, only five positions were allocated to bumiputera Sarawakians. Chinese youth, which make up 23.5 percent of the 15-40 age group, according to the 2010 census, comprise only 4.5 percent of the Youth Parliament. Indian youth, which make up 7.6 percent of the 15-40 age group, comprise also 5.3 percent of the Youth Parliament.

Indeed, the under-representation of minority groups in the Youth Parliament may have been even more skewed if a number of them were not directly appointed. In the original estimates, the Youth Parliament was supposed to have only 119 members. As many as 14 additional members may have been appointed, presumably by the youth and sports minister, whose ministry is responsible for this initiative.

In addition, there is very little information on the identity of these Youth Parliament members since its own website does not show the results of the online Youth Parliament elections nor does it list down the names and background of the Youth Parliament members.

In this day and age of transparency, for an entity which is supposed to represent the younger, tech-savvy generation, why is it so difficult to put on a website the identity of the Youth Parliamentary representatives with perhaps their Twitter handles, Facebook page and a brief background description?

It seems to be that outside of a very small inner circle, there is very little information about the activities of the Youth Parliament being disseminated to the larger youth population. Even the Youth Parliament’s official Twitter account ( @MYparlimenbelia ) has less than 6,000 followers.

One area where the Youth Parliament is more representative than the actual parliament is the percentage of female representatives. 23 out of 133 representatives are female (17 percent) which is more than the female representation in the Dewan Rakyat (10 percent).

The Youth Parliament is a good idea and a good start in allowing more democratic discourse especially among the younger generation but it should not evolve into an insider’s club that is not representative of the larger youth population in the country.


ONG KIAN MING is MP for Serdang.



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