Power to the Young People

You have heard of people power, gender power, black power and now this.

Africa is relatively progressive in gender terms:

• In Asia, 88% of parliamentarians are men and 12% are women
• In North America, 79% of parliamentarians are men and 21% are women
• In Africa, 76% of parliamentarians are men and 24% are women
• In South Africa, 71% of parliamentarians are men and 29% are women

South Africa is leading in this respect, but there is not yet full gender balance.

The 2013 MDG Report says: Among 22 of the 48 countries where elections were held in 2012, the use of either legislated or voluntary quotas (usually in combination with a proportional representation system) were largely responsible for the above-average increase in the number of women members of parliament. Where quotas have been legislated, women took 24 per cent of parliamentary seats; with voluntary quotas, they occupied 22 per cent of seats. Where no quotas were used, women took just 12 per cent of seats, well below the global average.

The Quota System

In a Democracy, everyone is supposed to be represented, to have a voice.  Of course minors (under the age of 18) don’t vote, so they are supposedly represented by their elders.  But what do you do when two-thirds of the population is under age 35?

In C4L programming, we found that the best counselors for orphans and vulnerable children are not pastors or teachers, who are older, but peers.  We deployed 18 – 28 year olds to care and support 8 – 18 year olds in extra-curricular Kids Clubs.  This only made sense because of the age proximity.

What about parliament?  Here are some United Nations statistics

• World-wide, 6% of the parliamentarians are under 35
• In Africa, 11% of the parliamentarians are under 35

Once again Africa is relatively progressive, but still way short of equity.  Why not introduce a quota system for age representivity?

The 2013 MDG Report also says:  The gender gap in employment persists, with a 24.8 percentage point difference between men and women in the employment-to-population ratio in 2012. The gap is most acute in Northern Africa, Southern Asia and Western Asia, where women are far less likely to be employed than their male counterparts. The differences in the employment-to-population ratio between men and women in these three regions approached 50 percentage points in 2012.

Young people have borne the brunt of the crisis.  Negative labour market trends for youth accounted for 41 per cent of the decline in the global employment-to-population ratio since 2007, due to rising unemployment and falling participation.

It is a well-known fact that the rate of youth unemployment is much higher than the overall unemployment rate.  In South Africa, 75% of the ranks of the jobless are under 35.  Yet they do not themselves have a proportionate voice in Parliament.  Not yet.

Youth Power

The ANC Youth League was once considered to be the way the voice of Youth was heard.  Under senior pastor Zuma you had a youth pastor named Malema.  Whether it was a good configuration or not, it is functionally useless for the 2014 elections.

So who speaks for the Youth?  Who will the under-35s vote for?  If two-thirds of the population is under 35 and those under 18 cannot vote – do the math!  About half of the electorate in 2014 is between 18 and 35.  (Given that the average life expectancy is in the low 50s.)  That’s about the same as the gender baseline – half/half!

The DA has now merged with Agang, with Mamphela Ramphele as its candidate for president.  But guess what?  She is 67 years old.  A woman yes, but she is going to pull the average age of Parliament up, not down!  She is 5 years older than Helen Zille and Patricia de Lille, who are both 62.  It’s reminiscent of Chernenko taking over from Andropov!

The only youth-led party out there is the EFF (Economic Freedom Fighters).  They are led by Julius Malema who is 33 years old.  That’s the same age that Thomas Sankara was when he became President of then-Upper Volta.  He changed his country’s name to Burkina Faso.  In both the major languages there, that means “Land of Upright Men.”  What would it take to make South Africa fit that description, instead of broken promises, waste and graft?

Sankara followed the formula that we need in 2014 – conservative in terms of the rule of law and liberal in terms of economic freedom.  Thus he was both right and left at the same time.  He reigned in on waste and corruption.  Usually that is best done by dictators, remembering that before Solon’s experiment with Democracy in ancient Athens, there had already been a millennium of prosperity.  In other words, you don’t need to vote to prosper – you just need safe and secure conditions for business and trade.  Sankara was tough on waste and corruption.  For both bleed away resources that are needed to help the poor.

Then he also made many radical pro-poor changes.  For example, in the capital city, Sankara converted the army's provisioning store into a state-owned supermarket open to everyone (the first supermarket in the country).  Innovation.  He redistributed land from the feudal landlords to the peasants. Wheat production increased from 1700 kg per hectare to 3800 kg per hectare. Equal opportunity.  His government banned female genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy; while appointing females to high governmental positions and encouraging them to work outside the home and stay in school even if pregnant.  Gender… and youth rights.

Albert Einstein said:  "The world will not evolve past its current state of crisis by using the same thinking that created the situation".  We need more young people in Parliament, to think out of the box.  We need to drive “humble cars” and end an era of “unfettered capitalism”.