Post 90s' Political Participation
By Dawn Chen, Ck Lao, Katherine Ying, Li Yueqi

Speaking of politics, probably most people would consider it as affairs engaged in by elder citizens. Although it is promising to see generation Y showing their ambition in participating in political activities, youths in general are less enthusiastic about politics in Macao.

Low political participation

For most people, the low political participation of generation Y in Macao is not a new story. A survey jointly released by the Macao Youth Politics Training Program Committee and the Macao Polling Research Association in August of this year showed that 70% of the 800 respondents - aged between 13 and 29 - chose to keep silent about public issues. To examine the interest and political participation of young people in Macao, we conducted an online survey on Facebook in October, 2013. Among the 118 respondents, only 6% reported they had participated in protests, petition submissions, political forums, policy seminars or other forms of political activities. The result found that people who participated in public issues mostly did so in the form of discussions, and seldom moved on to take other forms of action. In the 2013 Legislative Assembly (AL) Election, over 57% of the eligible young people did not vote, nearly half of them did not even register as a voter.

Lei Kit Ha and Fu Sut Teng, sophomores of University of Macau (UM), both stated that social issues had nothing to do with them. "My friends won't talk about social issues with me. Probably influenced by them, I pay little attention to these affairs either," Fu said.

Exploring reasons

Based on interpretations of our interviewees, including legislature candidates, scholars and university students, we discovered three factors that are attributed for Macao young people's indifference towards politics: namely, a lack of education that fosters political awareness, local media's inability to set the news agenda and the uniqueness of political environment in Macao.

Sou Ka Hou, a Post 90s candidate of the 2013 AL Election, criticized the lack of education concerning the election. According to him, the election issue was seldom taught by high school teachers, especially in religious schools. Additionally, students were only given information of particular candidates who most likely had "special connections" with their schools. As a result, they lost interest in such a "dirty election game" when they became eligible voters. Lei Chin Pang, senior instructor of Department of Communication at UM, agreed with Sou's point of view. He added that "morality cultivation", which is a major educational focus in most high schools, cannot be equated with "civic education". Lei said the issues or knowledge of politics are mostly not covered in high schools.

In addition, Lei argued that local media should also be blamed for the youth apathy  towards politics. He said that the media landscape in Macao is mainly dominated by Hong Kong media and local media are incapable of setting news agenda for local politics. On one hand, the public attention is mostly distracted by news from Hong Kong. On the other hand, local media place an emphasis on entertainment news, thus programs of current political and social affairs can hardly be seen. Specifically, Sou pointed out that media has little coverage of AL's routine meetings. In other words, young people know little about operations or discussions of the AL. "How can we ask someone to participate without telling him/her the details?" Sou added.

Last but not least, the uniqueness of political environment in Macao is another factor which undermines young people's political participation. "Macao's politics is very unique because it is dominated by traditional merchant powers. The result of this election, once again, has confirmed this point. Even the newly-elected young legislators are all backed by old powers," said Lei. "There is no doubt that young people may be demobilized as they feel that there is nothing they can do to change the current political setting."

Cheong Hoi Kuan, another Post 90s candidate, stressed that the government should be accountable for creating more opportunities as well as a fairer society for younger generation to participate in political affairs.

Young candidates set role models

Though the trend leads the political apathy in Macao, there are some Post 90s who are motivated to make some progress for society. As one of those youngest faces running for the election, Cheong Hoi Kuan's concern about political issues was fostered through the days he spent in a debate team of the university, which benefited him both in his capability and experience in political participation. "Our topics of debate are always related to political issues. Since then, I began to think more about these affairs." Now he has a part-time job as a debate mentor at a junior school and expects to stimulate more concerns among youngsters over public affairs through debate.

Another candidate, Sou Ka Hou has just graduated from university this year. His candidature in the AL Election is not achieved in one move. During his study life in the National Taiwan University, Sou already showed a high political awareness, devoting himself into a campaign which urged the Taiwanese authorities to simplify the administrative procedures that Hong Kong and Macao students had to go through before being allowed to leave Taiwan. Sou's efforts finally paid off. Citing Macao Daily Times, Taiwan's Ministry of Education announced in October that students from Hong Kong and Macao will be able to leave Taiwan without obtaining a written permission from their universities.

More expectations on Macao young people

Lei regarded the participation of young candidates as a "good trend", adding that it brought new ideas and perspectives to the dull political circle. "It also serves as a motivation for young people to make a change," said Lei, which is in line with the intention of Sou and Cheong.

Sou said, "As a Post 90s candidate, I want to convey a message to them, that is, young people with ideals, opinions, and appeals can definitely speak for themselves." He advised Post-90s to pay more attentions to our society. "I am not saying that you need to go as far as being an election candidate like me, but to be concerned with your neighborhood with more public consciousness."

Cheong highlighted the idea, "Challenge the unfair system, Post 90s youths refuse to remain silent." in his political platform. "It is not necessary to serve in the government in order to change society," Cheong said. "Instead, I believe that everyone could do something for society no matter how young you are."