Mohd Zool Hilmie Mohamed Sawal

The process of decision- making among councillors at local government level: A case study at Kuantan Municipal Council

The study of power relationships in urban planning has tended to focus on a narrow definition of power rather than using power as the central concept in the explanation of decision-making process and formulation of planning policies. Even though very few studies of local government councillors are available there is little doubt that more is known about the roles, values and attitudes of elected members than about any other component of local government. The processes being investigated in this study are based on conceptual framework and theoretical approaches of decision-making, and attempts to look at the present practices, by interviewing a group of Councillors from Kuantan Municipality Council. Specifically, it attempts to understand the role of Councillors in the local government system and factors influence them in making the right decision. The new factors that developed from this study would contribute to the formulation of a new framework of decision-making. The findings presented are derived from those meeting and support by input from other parties such as politicians, planners and academicians. The interpretation of Councillors respond to certain questions was descriptively analysed. One striking conclusion that can be derived from the findings is that Councillors have no clear guidelines in order to assist them making a right decision on the councils matter. By using the new process that based on the 13 factors as decision-guidelines, they believed and agreed that will make their decisions fundamentally more accurate and focused. In future research, improvements that could be applied by councillors in ensuring the current process of decision-making at the local government level more inclusive and effective by enhancing the role of Councillors and strengthening strategic partnerships by collaborating with other focus groups.

Malaysian Young Voters’ Voices in the New Political Landscape

The 12th General Election in March 2008 had changed Malaysia’s political landscape in significant ways. A series of unexpected events happened and for the first time in history, the ruling party, Barisan Nasional (BN) failed to obtain the two third majority votes. This ‘political tsunami’ had influenced people from various backgrounds especially those in the political parties to probe further into the reasons behind the changes. After a series of ‘post mortem’ and discussions, political leaders now began to realise about the importance of moving out from their ‘comfort zone’ and responding immediately to the signals from the public. By ignoring people’s voice particularly the young voters who made up more than forty percent of the total voters, political parties were digging their own graves. Thus, this paper was written in order to identify young voters’ trends and preferences in choosing their candidates to represent them in the new political landscape. The findings of this research showed that young voters preferred to choose candidates based on their profile, images and personal characteristics, visions and missions as well educational backgrounds. Most importantly, the candidates must also be ‘clean’ in all aspects. Hopefully, the findings will provide political parties better understanding of the young voters’ needs and want in order to ensure their parties’ survival since this group of voters is the deciding factor of the future Malaysian political landscape.Keywords: by- election; young voters; candidate factor; Permatang Pasir