Govt aims to fulfil court order on automatic voter registration
PARLIAMENT | The government will "try its best" to fulfil two court orders - lowering the voting age to 18 and automatic voter registration (AVR) upon eligibility.
This was revealed to the Dewan Rakyat by de facto Law Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar during question time today.
"The decision by the Kuching High Court states that Undi18 and AVR must be...
PARLIAMENT | The government will "try its best" to fulfil two court orders - lowering the voting age to 18 and automatic voter registration (AVR) upon eligibility.
This was revealed to the Dewan Rakyat by de facto Law Minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar during question time today.
"The decision by the Kuching High Court states that Undi18 and AVR must be fulfilled at the same time. It cannot be done separately.
"If we want to do it separately, we have to amend the Federal Constitution again. The government decided there is no need for this.
"We will try our best to fulfil the court order," he said.
Wan Junaidi (above) was responding to Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman (Muda-Muar) who proposed that Undi18 - the colloquial name for the movement to lower the voting age - be AVR to reduce complexity.
The constitutional amendments to allow for both Undi18 and AVR were passed by Parliament with a two-thirds majority in 2019 during the Pakatan Harapan administration and was supposed to be implemented last year.
After taking reigns in March last year, former prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin's administration then projected that Undi18 would only be ready by September 2022 - potentially after an election that he had repeatedly promised.
Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob's government, however, appears more keen on seeing Undi18 through and has vowed not to appeal against the Kuching High Court decision made on Sept 3.
By lowering the voting age and implementing AVR, the Election Commission (EC) projected that an additional 7.8 million voters will be added to the existing 14 million voters, dramatically changing the electoral landscape.
Earlier today, Wan Junaidi told the Dewan Rakyat that he had discussed the court order with the EC.
"We (decided) that we will fulfil the court order," he said.
He added that the cabinet had, on Sept 10, decided not to appeal against the court order.
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