KUALA LUMPUR, June 14 — Young voters joining the country’s election system courtesy of Undi18 were not certain to reject the communal politics of previous generations, newly elected PKR Youth chief Adam Adli Abdul Halim said.

While young voters typically skewed left and towards anti-establishment views, Adam told Malaysiakini in an interview that it would be naïve to assume this would also be the case in Malaysia following the move to lower the voting age from 21 to 18.

“[The youth’s political views are] not necessarily what they see on social media, but rather, what they discuss with their family, what their teachers told them in school, and what their friends and neighbours will talk about every day.

“It’s not surprising to see how the voting trend will not be how we anticipated it earlier.

“We cannot simply expect [young people to vote progressively], because young age would never guarantee innovation or progressiveness,” Adam was quoted as saying.

After the implementation of the Automatic Voter Registration system that came into effect December 15 last year, it was believed that the influx of 750,000 new voters would favour multiracial and multicultural parties including Adam’s PKR.

However, previous election results have shown that this was of low significance even if the view were accurate, as the 18-20 age group still represented just 5 per cent of eligible voters.

The PKR Youth chief also warned that the new voters were not only in urban areas that tended to be more progressive, but also in rural constituencies that were typically conservative.

“It is up to us to make sure that we can move forward and move on from the racial politics [and] identity politics,” the 32-year-old said.

Commenting on PKR’s potential overlap with fellow Opposition party Muda, Adam conceded that this could be an issue but said the friendly rivalry would push each to be better.

He told Malaysiakini that he has a good relationship with Muda’s former secretary-general Amir Hadi and respects Muda leader Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman as a politician.

“It’s very interesting how we’re going to prove that each of us is better so that we can win over the same demographic.

“I've never been hostile [to Muda] out of respect. I think as long as it’s healthy, competition is good,” Adam added.