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Youth in the Politics of Transition in Malaysia 135

agencies such as Biro Tata Negara (National Civics Bureau) to conduct political
education for the public, speci cally government sta and students in schools
and universities. Khairy Jamaluddin, who was then the UMNO Youth Chief
and Malaysian Youth Minister, formed BNYV in 2012 as part of BN e orts
to rebrand Barisan Nasional to appeal to young professionals in urban centres
who were not interested in joining any BN component parties. BNYV has a
clear structure, with a national committee and several state ones.
Formed in 2016, the School of Politics was implemented in several states,
including Johor, Penang, Perak, and Pahang. Its modules covered history,
ideologies of Malaysian political parties, technical skills for organising social
and political activities, and data-management. e programme was also a
platform for BN leaders to interact with participants, who were predominantly
Malay. Before this, in 2015, Barisan Nasional Youth had formed the Akademi
Kepimpinan Kapten Hussein (AKHI, Captain Hussein Leadership Academy)
to recruit young members by holding a series of leadership training sessions
and open forums for youths. AKHI was led by former Deputy UMNO Youth
Chief Khairul Azwan Harun. It courted controversy when it held a forum on
Anwar Ibrahim’s second sodomy case featuring the lead prosecutor in the case
himself, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah. By the end of 2017, Budiman Mohd
Zohdi, a BN member of Parliament (MP), added yet another initiative of his
own by forming the School of Political Communication (SKOP) to attract
non-UMNO youths. He openly stated that SKOP was a cadre system for party
members, intended to compete with the DAP’s Sekolah Demokrasi:
e cadre training (proses pengkaderan) is central to the engagement of political
machinery by its party or political leaders. at’s why we see the opposition
has its Sekolah Demokrasi. For SKOP, we are giving value-added knowledge in
terms of political communication (quoted in Amin 2018).
Apart from political-education programmes, most political parties also started
rolling out internships, whether with an MP or assemblyperson’s o ce or with
the party’s headquarters. At the forefront was PKR. PKR’s programme adopted
a two-pronged approach: the party gave interns speci c themes to research
and write policy papers on, or had them work directly under assemblypersons
and MPs. Interns received a monthly stipend, with internships ranging from
two months to a year. e DAP, too, had an internship programme, called
‘Know an MP’. Starting in 2013, the programme selected ten youths, giving
them opportunities to work with DAP elected representatives. Some DAP
representatives, such as MP Dr Ong Kian Ming, also had their own internship
programmes. Meanwhile, PAS also has a Practical Training Programme (PTP),

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