Director of youth forum in Zimbabwe, Mr Ashton Bumhira has encouraged youths to register to vote and also encouraged the government to allow easy access of acquiring national ID’s.
Addressing delegates during the National Youth Symposium on electoral reforms in Harare yesterday, Mr Bumhira said the youths should decide on the governance of the country.
“We want young people to easily access identity cards, every election we have over 1 million young people who will be eligible to vote.
“The government must make it easy for a young person especially first time voters to get national identity documents so that they can easily register to vote,” he said.
Mr Bumhira said they need to locate challenges young people are facing which hinders their effective participation in the forthcoming elections.
“The other issue is for accessibility of registration centers, at the moment district registration centers are too far away.
“As we all know young people are unemployed, they are struggling to access registration centers, government must go out and start registering young people using the mobile outreach approach,” added Mr Bumhira.
Furthermore, Mr Bumhira added that when young people benefit everyone benefits saying youths should be provided with opportunities.
“Young people are always used during pre-election and also post-election to perpetrate the violence, going forward we want political parties to make sure young people are also viewed as assets in terms of our development,” he said.
In addition, Mr Bumhira said the youths are ready to take action against the global phenomenon known as the shrinking space of the civil society, if they are given the chance to participate as active citizens.
“Church organizations, civil society organizations and different political parties should make sure that they don’t perpetuate violence and that they don’t use young people to commit violence.
“The idea is to engage, to collaborate so as youth organizations you will see going forward there will be producing position papers and policy documents, we want to be seen as solution holders and be part of the team to rebuild our country,” he added.
The event was also attended by 30 youth leaders from across the country.
