Youths should form pressure group to advance political interests

Youths should form pressure group to advance political interests – The Policy Desk

Jan 07, 2019 News

By Kemol King

The Policy Desk, a newly formed youth organisation, held its first session at the Theatre Guild, yesterday, with the formation of a political pressure group to advance the interests of that demographic high on its agenda.
The three coordinators of the Policy Desk are Dennis Glasgow, Vishal Joseph and Eden Corbin.
The Policy Desk, which aims at sensitizing young people about political and civic engagement, heard arguments from youth advocates about the formation of a political party for youth.
Since the No-Confidence motion on December 21 last, politicians on both sides of the divide appear to have begun to pander to the youth demographic, the largest one there is.
Persons at the Policy Desk’s forum were urged by the facilitators to be true to their own interests, and not be tokenized by political parties.

Young Guyanese at the Theatre Guild, yesterday

Founder of Youth for Local Government party, Clayon Halley, said that youth do not have the capacity and experience to form a political party that would receive enough support and involvement to have enough power in the National Assembly.
Halley’s Youth for Local Government party contested the 2016 Local Government Election.
“I basically started that group because I feel young people need to get involved. My hope with that was for young people to use the local government process as an avenue to learn and understand the governance structure, and how things work, to better prepare themselves for central government.”
Building from the inspiration that started that movement, Halley strongly advocates for the formation of a national youth pressure and lobbying group.
Although youths, between 18 and 35, make up about 64 percent of the list of eligible voters, Halley said that a political party could wait and serve its purpose in the long term, while the Policy Desk forms a pressure group.
Halley, 28, who is a husband and father, said that it’s better for youths to start “looking at something that’s more realistic to have immediately, as [opposed] to something that I see happening long-term.”
“I think that there are a lot of nuances about forming a political party, set with ideology and all of that.
“If you go to parliament as a party, people will see you as a minority group with little power. Taking that position makes a group partisan. There is the likelihood that that party could alienate youth who identify with other parties.
“You don’t need all the formalities to set up a pressure group. So, you can have a pressure group tomorrow; you pick areas of advocacy or issues that you want to deal with, and you could use that as an avenue to lobby the government and see certain changes occur. You could host a press conference and say: ‘These are the issues we are looking at and want government to address.’ You are likely to get a response.”
He explained that, if the group purports to form a political party, they would have to “set up a campaign, go to election and hope that you win seats so that you can get at the table to effect any change that you want to see. Also, your numbers might be in the minority, even if you get seats. So you might put something forward and it might be shot down by the others on the other side of the table. It’s better to look at the pressure group now, than a political party.
“So I think the pressure group would [sort of] serve as a majority if you get all young people to come on board and to advocate.”
He said that such a group shouldn’t be relegated to just Georgetown but across the nation.
“That’s why it’s important that what happened today is replicated in the other regions, so that we could get a regional approach to pressure, rather than just a central approach to pressure. For me, [the pressure group] would yield immediate response, more than a political party.”
The Policy Desk, for the purpose of building on these grassroots engagements, will be travelling to multiple regions and will develop a report for political parties to use for the advancement of youth interests.

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