African countries have been implored to capacitate the youth and rope in more inclusive ways to facilitate their participation in electoral process and politics as a whole. These sentiments were expressed by participants at the Roundtable on Elections and Youth, held in Pretoria, South Africa late last year. The roundtable report released recently shows that though participants have at times varied individuals view depending on their position and country of origin they all agreed youth participation in the electoral process in Africa is facing unique features that requires greater responsive urgency.
According to the report the levels of youth participation in national and regional representative structures have been low in the region and very often elections fail to attract the attention of youth. Many young people are said to be therefore exercising power outside of formal electoral processes in situations of social and economic exclusion and difficulty and little is often done to specially target young people and build their confidence in formal democratic electoral systems as a vehicle for political renewal. To capture the importance accorded to youth on the Continent, The Chairperson of Electoral Commissions Forum of the Southern Africa Development Community countries (ECF-SADC) Executive Committee Justice Mahapela Lehohla, made reference to the African Youth Charter and in particular its provisions relating to youth participation in democratic processes.
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