Students in tertiary institutions must be empowered so that Malaysian youths can become more politically mature, said DAP Serdang MP Ong Kian Ming.

“Even though the Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA) have been reformed to allow students to be members of political parties, they are not allowed to take those activities into campus.

“And then at the same time, people are complaining, political maturity among the youth is very low, (voter) registration is very low.

“This is what you created. You emasculated the students in public and private universities,” Ong said during a panel titled ‘Political Awareness and Maturity Among Youth’ at the 11th Malaysian Student Leader Summit at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC) today.

He, along with fellow panellist Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nancy Shukri, had been asked how to encourage awareness and interest in politics among youths.

In the UK, all political parties have a presence in universities, he said, and they are not disruptive or cause chaos.

On the contrary, they contribute to the “overall freedom and political discourse” among youth, he said.

However, there is no such presence in public or private universities in Malaysia, he said.

Even something as “basic” as voter registration exercises are not carried out regularly in universities here, he lamented.

“That is one place where you think it’s a no-brainer, right? You are having students turn 21, that is the best place you can capture them (to register them as voters).

“But are our universities doing that? No.

“(If) even something as basic as voter registration is not being done, how do you expect political maturity among our youths in universities to be increased if we do not even recognise the need to legislate them as voters,” he said.

However, he earlier noted that in the past two general elections of 2008 and 2013, voter turnout among the youth was not that much different than older demographics.

It was previously reported that there are still close to four million eligible citizens who have yet to register as voters.