The Campaign to Expel the "Grandfathers" of Parliament Begins

The campaign has begun to send older members of the House back for fresh young bloods to take over.

"Grandfathers" are asked to step down to allow "dads" to intervene because they have had the opportunity to represent their constituents.

Professor Ransford Gyampo, Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for European Studies at the University of Ghana, is leading the campaign as head of the Youth Bridge Research Institute (YBRI), a lobby group.

Voter service, he said, would be enriched when those who have been in Parliament for many years and who are "old", "tired" and "weak" take a back seat and operate behind the scenes.

Professor Ransford Gyampo, who spoke to the press at the launch of the Youth Parity Campaign on the theme of youth and parliamentary primaries, observed that Africa is a continent with a young population with close two billion young people between the ages of 18 and 35.

"Yet the kind of people who run the continent are very old and continue to badail the continent with the anti-development ills of gerontocracy."

"If you go to Europe, the Americas and other developed continents, their population is quite old and yet they are run by a relatively young population."

"How old was J. F. Kennedy when he became president of the United States? How about Bill Clinton and Barack Obama? "

"Emmanuel Macron of France would not have qualified to become president of Ghana, but in France, he was elected president at 39 years."

"Is there no correlation between the age at which one is chosen to govern or represent one's principal and its development?"

Mr. Gyampo argued that even the indigenous governance system fully supports youth participation and representation.

According to him, young people play an active role as members of Asafo societies in the training of chiefs and in the implementation of traditional political prescriptions.

Indigenous systems, he said, also provide spaces for youth selection as leaders.

He regretted that, in Ghana's current constitutional and democratic regime, elites lacking strength and energy prefer to play a leading role in politics and want uneducated youth to remain behind the scenes and offer advice .

"It's a complete case of reverse thinking, a practice that undermines and undermines Africa's pursuit of development," he said.

According to him, the average age of the African population is 19.5 years while the average age of its leaders and representatives is 62 years.

He called on young people not to be silent anymore and not to do their business as they usually do, but to be inspired to demand their fair participation in decision-making.

He urged young people to come to Parliament, but they are demoralized by the obstacles and frustrations of political parties, who dare to challenge the parliamentary elections as independent candidates.

"It is the interest of voters that counts in any parliamentary and representative democracy and not the capricious and capricious desire of political parties," he said.