Since 2020, there has been a growing trend of disillusionment among young people in our country. At the presidential election of 2019 and the general election which followed, they came out in droves to help elect a new president who performed well during his term as a bureaucrat. To help him implement his plans, the young people at the 2020 general elections voted into power a brand new political party of which the president was a member. The electorate even handed the new political party a near two-third majority to help fulfill the stated aims and goals of their election manifesto.
Sadly, the president was unable to live up to the expectations. Lanka’s economy in the aftermath the Covid-19 pandemic deteriorated. Meanwhile, it soon became clear, that as has been usual in local politics, election promises were soon forgotten. Instead, corruption and nepotism grew to new heights.
Young people were particularly badly affected. Unemployment among youth had grown to 23.8% by January 2022. The economy was in freefall and the country was at that time in danger of defaulting its debt repayment. The coffers of the treasury were empty and government was soon unable to import even basic food requirements, medicines, fuel and cooking gas. Even worse, many small businesses were forced to close down. To make matters worse, the cost of living was rising astronomically!
The fragmented and weak opposition appeared to be unable to give leadership to the growing frustration of the masses and limits itself to criticizing the regime. It was at this point, the young people independent of the political leadership began organizing silent non-violent street protests and calling for the president and his government to resign.
As the people’s problems continued to worsen, a protest at Mirihana suddenly escalated into violence with protestors surrounding the president’s private residence. Some among the protestors also set fire to vehicles and attacked police personnel who attempted to defuse the situation.
Soon the independent protests coalesced and a permanent non-violent protest sites began springing up countrywide, with a large permanent site at Galle Face Green’. It subsequently led to the setting up of another protest site opposite ‘Temple Trees’ titled ‘Mynagogama’ – demanding premier Mahinda Rajapaksa should resign.
The situation changed when a gang, mostly Mahinda Rajapaksa supporters, violently attacked the protesters at the protest sites. It unleashed a wave of counter-violence, which included arson attacks by small trained groups of men affiliated to particular party political groups. It also led to the resignation of Prime Minister Rajapaksa.
However, the infiltration of the non-party political protest groups by particular party political elements and the use of violence, soon saw the young people drop out of the protest movement. Today the number of protestors are down to a mere shadow of the heyday of the movement.
Once again the young people have been left disillusioned and let down by the antics of political parties who attempted to make use of young people. The Youth make up around 4.6 million or 23% of Lanka’s population. This large segment of our population has come to recognize that the existing political parties are merely attempting to use them to take forward their private political agenda and is reflected in the falling numbers now manning the protest sites which were originally set up largely by youth.
The fact is, the youth in our country play little or no role in the decision-making process. They are simply being made use of, for the attainment of petty political party goals. This fact is startlingly revealed by the representation of youth in parliament today.
Despite comprising over 23% of the population, in today’s parliament of 225 law- makers, just seven Members of Parliament (MPs) are below 35 years of age.
In this sad scenario, it is a relief that a single MP - Imitaz Bakeer Marker - has brought forward a private members Bill, proposing a statutory requirement for all political parties to nominate at least 25% of their candidates to comprise young people.
At the same time, the youth are also beginning to come together to demand a rightful place in Sri Lanka’s decision-making process.
One of the initiatives is the “Youth to lead Sri Lanka” movement – a non-party political citizen pressure group with a special focus on promoting youth political participation and representation in Sri Lanka. The group consists of young professionals and university students from a variety of academic disciplines and fields, working towards opening avenues for young people to enter politics and improve young people’s representation in parliament.
This is a much needed initiative, and we wish them well.
