BN Youth to propose candidates for GE14

KOTA KINABALU: There is no point in talking about the future or the National Transformation 2050 (TN50) if youth candidates are not fielded in the next election, Barisan Nasional (BN) Youth said.

“Yes, definitely we (BN Youth) will be proposing candidates in the upcoming election, but at the end of the day, there are a lot of factors that you have to look into and I think it is important for BN, as a coalition, to present younger candidates.

“You cannot talk about TN50 when you are having old candidates in the next election. It does not make sense, does it?” BN Youth Sabah head Yamani Hafez Musa told reporters when met at BN’s Youth Manifesto Colloquium at the Tabung Haji Hotel on Wednesday.

“When you talk about TN50 or the future and you put old candidates in, it is kind of a contradicting effort,” he added.

When he was asked to disclose the number of youth candidates that would be fielded in the next election, Yamani said BN was not a party that liked to talk about ‘numbers and percentages’.

“Whenever we see a place that has an opportunity or when we feel that the youth candidate has the potential, we should give that person the opportunity.

“We do not see through numbers, we want to choose the right candidate. We do not want to impose 30 per cent or 40 per cent because that will affect the quality of the candidates,” he added.

Commenting on whether or not Yamani would be fielded in the next election, he opined that the most important thing for him was to see young leaders step up.

“I want young leaders to step up. It does not have to be me. Whoever comes up, it will reflect good on me as the BN national youth leader, even if I would not be fielded,” he said.

Yamani also commented on the impact of social media on the country’s political scene, whereby some have said opposition parties are currently holding the upper hand on the matter.

“You (a certain portion of the public) see it from only side. We (BN) are doing well on social media as well. If you look at the traffic flow of opposition youth and our youth, you can see that we have a higher number of viewers, traffic flow and we receive a lot of online shares as well,” he said.

He asserted that a proper study had been conducted to examine BN’s social media track record and it was discovered that BN was equally as good or even better than the opposition when it came to penetrating the social media world.

Yamani also commented on the relevance of National Transformation 2050 (TN50) in presenting the aspirations of youths, whereby he described the initiative as a ‘two-way street’.

“TN50 is open to everyone, regardless of age or political beliefs and this has been done all over the world,” he said, adding that some of the videos had been implemented in the recent state budget and that more of these aspirations would be included in BN’s upcoming GE14.