UMNO needs to win over the hearts of young people as early as 17 and should not wait until they are eligible to vote at 21 to enable them to understand the party's struggle, said its Youth chief, Khairy Jamaluddin.

"We must start four or five years earlier to ensure that Umno can win over their souls. We do not want them to go across to the other side," he added.

He said when the younger generation evaluate a party, they not only gauge its Youth and Puteri wings, but also its overall leadership from the highest to grassroots levels.

"Emulate party president (Najib) who gets closer to young people through social media, sit with them, tries his best to understand this generation and bridge the gap to garner their support," he said when winding up the debate at the 2013 Umno General Assembly here today.

Khairy said the proposed cadreship development programme would be a cornerstone in wooing the younger generation in the quest to make Umno a visionary and competitive party.

On rising cost of living, he said the problem faced by young people should be taken seriously as Umno would be appraised by its ability to overcome the issue.

"The younger generation in cities earning less than RM3,000 a month are living in atrocious condition as their salaries are spent to pay bills, rent and so on.

"They are not living extravagantly and spending beyond their means, they are really hard pressed to the extent that they do not even have enough money to eat," he said.

He said Umno Youth wanted leakages in the financial governance of ministries and agencies to be plugged while calling on people to be thrifty.

"Do not expect people to tighten their belt, but leakages are occurring in the country's financial governance," he said, adding that the people were not angry when told to save for rainy days and understood why subsidies had to be reduced.

Khairy, who is also youth and sports minister, said however, the people would get angry if year in, year out, the Auditor-General's Report continued to expose leakages in government administration.

"Anyhow, let me assure the people not to be crestfallen as the prime minister acts decisively and quickly on the Auditor General's Report and clarifies to the people on actions being taken," he said.