"We want 50% of the young people in Parliament" - Malatji
By Neo Poho
During his media briefing for the first time as the President of the ANC Youth League (ANCYL), Collen Malatji has revealed that the ANCYL wants nothing less than 50% of young people in parliament.
Malatji said it was important that the majority of decision-makers and those planning for the future are young people, people who will be there to account in the future.
"We are not going to accept anything less than 50% of young people in parliament because parliament is not a retirement village, the 50% of the old people that will remain, we will use them for wisdom but we don’t need 80% of them in parliament.
Agenda 2050 was planned by somebody who is 70 years old and who will not be there to account for those issues, so we need to take responsibility for our own future because this leadership is not apologetic about that," Malatji said.
Malatji furthermore alluded that the league would use its voice, which has more authority now that there’s an elected leadership, to influence ANC policies and one of their priorities will be to influence the structures in the ANC on youth positions as the policy positions of the ANC must reflect the youth league's influence.
"Everything that has to do with power in this country, young people are going to be at the forefront of driving that agenda and we will be their voice to make sure we represent their interests.
It cannot be that over 70% of unemployed people in this country are young people and you expect they are going to vote for the ANC again, they have given us 29 years to lead them and now they want action, they no longer want excuses,” Malatji added.
The first leg of the ANCYL conference was concluded on Sunday while the second leg, where they are expected to conclude on policy positions and adopt resolutions in hybrid sessions from venues across the country, has not been scheduled.
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