TESSA DOOMS | SA youth must emulate African peers to forge presence at 2024 poll

Thomas Sankara was 33 years old when he became president of Burkina Faso. By that point he had already served as minister of information and prime minister of what was then Upper Volta.

Sankara had not done so on the favour of his elders. He in fact had resigned as information minister in protest about repression against media outlets who wrote about politics and was arrested as prime minister due to his bold opposition to the continued colonial powers of the French president. His path to the presidency was paved by his passion for service and ethic of leadership. Likewise, young Africans today need not wait their turn to enter politics or government.

They need not navigate politics based on the good graces of old politicians holding on to power well after they have run out of ideas or the energy to serve. Youth participation in politics need not be limited to voting fodder, but in a context where youth make up 60% of the population in Africa, youth should raise their hands to serve.

In the lead up to the 2024 national and provincial elections, young South Africans must decide the roles they will play in these pivotal elections. Will the youth have the foresight to use their advantage in numbers to be the deciding voice of the election?

Will they have the fortitude to have their issues and their faces on the ballot? Instead of voting for party X or politician Y, what would it look like for young people to vote for themselves in 2024? To not only show up at the polls in numbers, but to show up at the polls for themselves. Fortunately, young South Africans have the benefit of time and examples from within Africa to look to, where young people have shown up for themselves and are winning.

In 2016, the #NottoYoungtoRun movement in Nigeria, started as a campaign by youth-led organisation YIAGA under the leadership of Samson Itodo, made a historic call to reduce the age of participation as a candidate in elections in Nigeria so that the youth could be allowed to run for seats as representatives.

The movement gained a following of thousands of young people in Nigeria. It caught alight in other African countries like Cameroon. The movement got international support and eventually resulted in a win when legislation was changed in 2018 to reduce ages across various categories of candidature, including the presidency, to include youth participation. In 2019, Nigeria saw a dramatic rise in young people contesting  elections. A shift that has re-energised youth in Nigerian politics.

#NottoYoungtoRun ran so that  the Zambian movement Youth4Parliament could fly. As a symbolic handing over of a baton in fighting for youth participation in electoral politics, Nawa Villy Sitali and Thompson Kamuhuza Luzendi, after realising that mainstream politics was hostile to young people wanting to run for public office, started a movement to get more youth elected to parliament and local councils. The Youth4Parliament movement grew from 22 young people caucusing under a tree in 2018, to a ground force of 60,000 committed organisers across the country by the 2021 elections. The majority of these young people had not been in party politics before.

With the hope of getting 10 young people from their movement elected to office, the movement set out to find young people with the guts and energy to run for public office, and helped them build constituencies and supporters in their communities and regions.

They found hundreds who were young and ready to run.The Y4P movement, as it is affectionately called, did not register as a political party but rallied to have candidates from the movement represented in seven opposition parties and as independents. They built structures, and an organising ethos that saw the movement grow based on the common goal of disrupting Zambian politics and getting young people to take up office through people’s power rather than the power of patronage or personality.

With no resources to speak of, the Y4P movement’s innovative approach such as the “Shake your neighbour” campaign, encouraging youth political organisers to focus on winning over their families, friends and neighbours to the cause of youth presentation in governance, the movement broke the conventions of big party and big man politics and won the hearts and minds of communities by presenting a new brand of politics. This political shake up did not go unnoticed, but even the Y4P activist were not expecting to have over 100 young people win seats across parliament and local councils across Zambia.

They had supported eight young people who got seats in parliament, had two young people win mayoral races and dozens win council seats.

From a caucus under a tree, the Y4P movement backed youth representatives have now formed a multiparty caucus in parliament since 2021. While SA debates youth league politics, Zambian youth are forging new pathways for participation, creating new platforms for contestation and setting a new standard for political organising through young people’s power.

SA is one catalytic organising moment away from young people taking their rightful place in politics and governance. A place where their majority matters. Where their issues lead, and their representation brings the course correction democracy so desperately needs.

In 2024 South African youth must show up as young and ready to run.