IPOH, Jan 16 — The DAP Socialist Youth (DAPSY) today pledged to register more voters and become a stronger force within the party to match its counterparts and more significantly, Umno.
Wing chairman Anthony Loke Siew Fook today admitted during the wing’s special congress that DAPSY had not performed at its optimum level and had plenty of room for improvement.
“We need to work harder as advocates of what we believe in and help the DAP broaden its base of supporters in both the national and state levels,” he said in his opening address.
Loke noted that as youths themselves, DAPSY should use its powers and position to spread DAP’s influence to the wide pool of young voters in the country.
He reminded DAPSY members of the party’s national objective of at least a 10 per cent increase in voters registered, in each constituency won by the DAP in the last general election.
“We have set this KPI (key performance indicator) so that we increase our voter base by at least 10 per cent.
“Meaning, if a constituency has 20,000 voters, we want an increase of at least 2,000 new voters registered in the constituency over this year,” he said.
Loke urged all the party’s voter registrars to take note of this and ensure that the target was met.
“It is achievable. The whole idea here is to increase the number of registered young voters,” he said.
DAPSY, he said, recognised that a large number of youths in the country were hungry for change and were big supporters of the Pakatan Rakyat.
According to Loke, the DAP needed to tap into that pool of youths in order to help secure a bigger win for the Pakatan Rakyat coalition in the coming general election.
“That is why we are encouraging voter registration. The young hunger for change but if we do not increase voter registration, then these youths will be unable to influence change for they have no voting rights,” he said.
Another method to mobilise the support of youths for the party, added Loke, was by using technology.
“We have many young representatives in the party and many of them are technology-savvy. Most of us have Facebook accounts and we use Twitter and blogs.
“This is a great way to reach out to the youths,” he said.
Loke added that the results of today’s special congress would also help clean up the organisation of DAPSY as a whole and strengthen it at the grassroots level.
During the congress today, DAPSY delegates passed amendments to 16 out of the wing’s 18 clauses in its constitution.
One of the amendments was to create a better balance among the delegates that represent the wing’s divisions at the state and national congress
With the amendments, the wing has set a minimum of eight delegates and a maximum of 23 for each division, depending on the number of members that attend the respective division’s annual general meetings.
“We also hope to increase the number of DAPSY divisions in the country. In fact, with the strengthening of DAPSY at the division level, we hope to be more active nationwide — not just in the big towns but also everywhere where there are DAP members,” said Loke, adding that DAPSY presently had 50 divisions in Malaysia.
He noted that since Election 2008, there has been a number of new branches set up in three states — Perak, Penang and Selangor.
“These are the three major states that have recorded a huge influx of new branches,” he said.
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