Garbxpress

Posted by Israel Young people between the ages of 15 and 35 constitute one-third of Africa’s population. However, youth’s influence on national politics remains limited. There is a general sense that traditional politics and representative democracy—whereby voters determine the outcome of power struggles at the ballot box—fail to attract the attention of younger cohorts who feel alienated from political processes. Recent events have shown that youth are critical in bringing about social and political transformation in Africa. From the dissolution of the apartheid regime in South Africa in the early 1990s and the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia in 2011 to the ‘Y’en a Marre!’ (‘Enough is enough!’) and ‘Ma Carte d’Electeur, Mon Arme’ (‘My voting card, my weapon’) campaigns in Senegal in 2011–12 and the thirdterm revolution in Burkina Faso in 2014, young people remain at the forefront of democratic struggles on the continent. When young people engage, authoritarian regimes may fall and co...