Youths make up majority of voters in Manek Urai

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KOTA BARU, July 4 — Election Commission secretary Datuk Ngah Senik at a briefing on the Manek Urai by-election here today, said of the 12,293 registered voters in the constituency, 5,598 were youths between the ages of 21 and 39 or 45.54 per cent of the total voters.

Next were those between the ages of 40 and 59 numbering 4,511 voters or 36.7 per cent of the electorate while there were 1,937 voters in the age group of 60 to 79 (15.75 per cent).

Voters above the age of 80 numbered 247 or 2.01 per cent.

In terms of gender, men numbered 6,316 voters (51.38 per cent) while women 5,977 (48.62 per cent).

Malays made up 99.2 per cent of the voters in the constituency, Chinese numbered only 56 voters, Indians 28 and others 12.

Postal voters only numbered 25.

Ngah added that nomination for the by-election on Monday and vote tallying on polling day on July 14 would be held at Sekolah Menengah Sultan Yahya Petra 1 in Kuala Krai.

Nine polling centres with 27 voting streams will be made available on polling day and there will be 497 election staffers to ensure smooth running of the by-election.

The by-election is necessitated by the death of its assemblyman, Ismail Yaakob of PAS, on May 22 due to a heart attack.

On another matter, Ngah said 3.7 million Malaysians eligible to vote had failed to register as voters.

He said the majority of them were youths and reminded them to exercise their democratic right to vote.

According to him, as of March 31, the electoral roll had 11 million voters. Malaysia has population of 27 million. – Bernama