Page 151 - Towards_a_New_Malaysia_The_2018_Election_and_Its_6146371_(z-lib.org)

136 Haris Zuan

housed under the party’s research wing. e PTP lasts for three months and
exposes participants to election-management and parliamentary a airs.
On the BN side was the Mahasiswa Turun Parlimen (MANTAP, Students
at Parliament) programme, open to university undergraduates. Participants
worked in the Malaysian Parliament as interns to BN MPs, including the prime
minister, deputy prime minister, other ministers and deputies, and speaker of
the House. MANTAP was led by former Muar MP and Minister in the Prime
Minister’s O ce Razali Ibrahim. In addition, BNYV Perak organised the
Amanjaya Internship, the rst political cadre system under Perak BN Youth,
with the full backing of the Perak state government. e programme placed
interns in the o ces of BN assemblypersons to gain exposure and aimed to
appeal to Perak youths.
On the whole, political-education programmes and internships with
political o ces are rather novel on both sides of the political divide in
Malaysia. Generally speaking, these programmes aim to empower youth by
exposing them to political ideas and understanding. Although organised by
political parties, the programmes do not over-emphasize party propaganda,
but aim more toward providing parties with an opportunity to engage with
youth. For example, youths coming from an ‘Islamic background’ joined the
DAP-organised Sekolah Demokrasi. ey used sessions with party leaders to
question the DAP’s opposition to hudud (Islamic laws) proposed by PAS. On
the other hand, the DAP saw this questioning as an opportunity for them to
engage with and explain the party’s stand to the predominantly Malay-Muslim
participants.
ese programmes go beyond party members; they are open to any youths,
regardless of a liation. While some of the participants might eventually join
the party, in truth, the majority of them did not. In fact, a youth who was
a liated with UMNO and BN participated in Sekolah Politik and Sekolah
Demokrasi, only later to run for the National Youth Parliament as an ‘UMNO
candidate’ and subsequently become one of the key people in the School of
Politics UMNO initiated.
Among those who joined political parties, quite a number ended up as
city councillors (politically appointed) and state assemblypersons. Notable
participants like Amin Ahmad, who joined the MEGC programme in 2007,
not only became a member of Parliament in 2018, but is currently actively
promoting and organising his own political-education training, called Sekolah
Merdeka (School of Independence) under his NGO, Institute for Leadership
and Development Studies (LEADS), launched in 2014. e novelty of these
programmes and the fact that so many parties adopted similar models raise

This content downloaded from 139.80.253.0 on Fri, 06 Nov 2020 04:22:16 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms