ANC Youth League president Collen Malatji has insisted the ruling party’s youth structure wants half of the ruling party MPs to be young people.
He indicated that in the last elections the young lions sought 40% of ANC MPs to be young people, but were only able to obtain 20% of youth representation.
But after the elections next year the ANCYL wants 50% of members of parliament to be from the youth.
According to Malatji, Parliament is an important institution and it is in the National Assembly where young people can formulate and give direction on policies that will ultimately affect the youth.
He said young people need to be seen as important role players in lawmaking processes and that Parliament is not a place that should be only occupied by older people.
Their mission as the youth league, he said, is to ensure there is a generational mix in the ANC.
Malatji, who was speaking on eNCA on Tuesday evening, said they will start mobilising branches on this matter.
“We are currently 20% (in parliament), we want more. Before we said 40% of parliamentarians must be young people, we didn’t achieve that. We say we must work harder. The mother body is going to be subjected to democratic processes. We will contest that space in branches,” said Malatji.
The ANC will soon start with their process to nominate people who are going to parliament next year.
The number of ANC MPs has been declining in the past few years.
In the 2004 elections, the ruling party obtained a two-thirds majority after it won 279 seats in the National Assembly.
But that number dropped to 264 seats in the 2009 elections.
The number declined further in the 2014 elections when the ANC won 249 seats. After the 2019 elections the ANC was able to get 230 seats in the national assembly.
As a result, next year’s elections are expected to be fiercely contested.
IOL Politics