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Mahathir, 93, Aims to Lower Malaysia Voting Age to Empower Youth

  • Lowering age to 18 could boost registered voters by 25 percent
  • Disenfranchised youths grapple with living costs, unemployment
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He turned down an Oxford scholarship, has over a million Instagram followers and has been called a "greenhorn kitten." This is Syed Saddiq, Southeast Asia’s youngest minister 

(Source: Bloomberg)

Malaysia’s youth are likely to get more power after backing 93-year-old Mahathir Mohamad to topple a regime that ruled the Southeast Asian nation for six decades.

Malaysia is "very serious" about reducing the voting age to 18 before the next elections due by 2023, Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, 25, told Bloomberg in an interview in Kuala Lumpur. The two-month-old cabinet plans to ask the Attorney-General’s office to look into what laws need to be amended, he said.