In a statement today, he slammed Communications and Multimedia Minister Salleh Said Keruak who had said in a blogpost that youths, who make up half the voting population, would back BN in the upcoming general election (GE14).

Wong cited numbers from the Election Commission (EC) earlier this year which estimated that some 4.1 million eligible Malaysians had yet to register as voters.

“It is shameful for Salleh to be in gung-ho mode on his confidence in garnering youths’ support while BN is denying the rights of some 4.1 million unregistered voters, majority being those around 21 years of age, to vote in the next election,” he said.

“If BN is indeed so confident of getting the support of the youths, there is no reason for it to continue denying the rights of the 4.1 million unregistered voters to cast their votes in the next election, which may be held as early as October this year, according to some reports.”

Electoral watchdog Bersih 2.0 has also backed the implementation of automatic voter registration, saying in March that this would eliminate the lack of addresses, duplicate entries, the appearance of deceased persons as well as other dubious entries from the electoral roll.

Wong pointed out that the EC’s system was already linked to the National Registration Department, allowing the commission to trace the accuracy of a voter’s address for every voter registration application.

“What other impediments are there, apart from a true and sincere political will, for the implementation of automatic registration of voters ?” he said.

Even if the registration of new voters now would not be in time should GE14 be called in October, Wong said the question was whether BN was ready to implement the system to enable more Malaysians, especially youth, to vote in the next election.

“I suggest that Salleh advise Prime Minister Najib Razak on the immediate implementation of an automatic registration of voters system since he is so confident of the youths’ support for BN, as one of the main elements to keep Najib in power,” he said.