YPU wants more youth participation in 2025 polls

The Young Politicians Union (YPU) is championing for increased youth involvement as candidates in the 2025 general elections, aiming to shift their roles from mere spectators to active participants in shaping the political landscape.

Historically, Malawi has been witnessing youth being used by political figures to fuel violence and unrest, relegating them to marginal roles in the political sphere.

However, with the forthcoming elections scheduled for next year, where Malawians will elect the State President, Members of Parliament and Councilors, YPU is determined to rewrite this narrative.

YPU national director Clement Makuwa said they are now intensifying their efforts to ensure that there is an increase in youth’s participation as candidates in the next election.

“We are now conducting an assessment of the 2019 and 2020 elections just to crosscheck and verify how youth participation was like. I think, moving forward, through the analysis, we will draw our programming as far as mobilizing youth to be participating in politics is concerned,” Makuwa said.

“Participating in politics to our understanding is that we still want more young people in 2025 to be participating as candidates as Councilors, Members of Parliament let alone as presidential aspirants,” he added

To facilitate this, Makuwa said they are working tirelessly to address obstacles that have traditionally hindered young people from pursuing political roles.

One significant challenge identified by Makuwa is the restrictive legislation within political parties that limits young people’s involvement in decision-making processes. To counter this Makuwa said YPU plans to lobby political parties to create more inclusive environments for aspiring young politicians.

Additionally, Makuwa said YPU aims to advocate for the enforcement of existing laws, such as those governing political party financing, to level the playing field for aspiring young candidates.

“The most important one is that we need to do advocacy around the political party laws, you know we have the Political Parties Act, which bars anyone contesting in an election to ditch out money and give out handouts that law is very important but the enforcement of that law remains a story of another day, so we want to focus on that part of advocacy as most young people do lack resources to compete with established politicians,” he emphasized.