Youth – Should I vote or not!

Is it pointless to educate our first time voters, and those who have never voted before on the importance of the exercise of their franchise in an election, or should we leave it to their common sense alone to make that decision for themselves assuming it is their conscious decision so to do?

I would like the readers to comment on this if they might! In Sri Lanka politics dominates all areas of life, and so politicians make decisions that affect our daily life, and in that sense who we appoint or elect make a huge difference in what choices and freedom we enjoy.

A yet to be published survey, the results of which I was made privy to recently said that 82% of our youth will given a chance, migrate overseas for with permanent settlement or for temporary employment.

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?   

It is this escape valve that has stopped another youth uprising, and given our young people an option that they can at least hope to pursue giving them HOPE. It is HOPE that youth have. They begin with idealism in their student lives, which are sadly CRUSHED when they enter the world of employment search. A young person wants hope for the future, and when there is none, he despairs and forms a cynical opinion on those who make promises, that they cannot keep, and politicians are at the blunt end of this criticism.

So in the Sri Lankan context what must a social minded person do?

It is our duty to show what the reality is today. Then it is noble if we can show them what might be a better alternative to the status quo, and finally it is up to each political party to attempt to show these people, that their policies have the best chance of achieving their personal goals.

It is the political party that can best market this in the youth favor that will hopefully persuade the youth to exercise his or her franchise first and secondly cast it to that political party. It then boils down to a marketing exercise where the winner is the one who is able to get the majority of this deciding franchise that can make the difference in an election as to which party can form a government and accordingly implement its policies, if they are true to their word. 

This all sounds very idealistic, but if thought out carefully, we owe our future this debt!  Let us start repaying this now.