it’s time to bring the real youth to the tables and involve them in more areas of government decision making

With the ensuing elections, I get the feeling only political parties are engaged; the general public either lacks the enthusiasm or is simply disconnected. Time has shown that the parliament has increasingly failed to reflect people’s aspirations or left them under-represented or not represented at all, leaving hundreds of thousands literally disfranchised from their political choice. Not many people fully understand how the political system works. The public is not made aware of the work description of the representatives they have chosen or the value of the office they represent. A parliamentarian’s work is often intangible and hard to measure. In addition is the growing mistrust of politicians and the ideologies they represent. But what is of most concern is that people have generally become cynical about politics, often to the point that most of us have even lost our capacity for outrage. With more and more young people leaving the country for foreign shores in search of better livelihood opportunities, it may be true that we are only paying lip service to creating job opportunities and better environment for the youth. A majority of young people lack faith in their capacity to influence political outcomes. They would rather express political opinions on social media than become a part of the system. Increasingly they have little hope for better results in the country. The entire political system is old and boring, and we cannot deny that we live in a world that is super connected and high speed with globalised information at your finger tips. How does then the public, especially the youth, deal with poor education, lack of drinking water and sanitation, electricity outages, bad infrastructure and general incapability of major decision makers to make bold and wise decisions? Today, politics in the country is viewed as only about power and conflict. The leadership does not offer a lot either. There is no meaningful communication from politicians whether from new entrants or old players, and only a lot of rhetoric. Progressive and positive changes are talked about with no solid plans or backing. Above all, politicians do not even talk to each other. Any debate viewed on television sounds like a fish market war. There is no such thing as shared views to run the country better. Maybe it’s time to actually talk to young people in leadership roles – not people who have lived over four and five decades and call themselves the youth – it’s time to bring the real youth to the tables and involve them in more areas of government decision making. There are a lot of good young people out there with brilliant minds, and creative and sensitive approach to finding solutions to modern day problems. With a huge young population, perhaps this could be the turning point for young people to drive the ballot and increase their participation in politics and governance.