WITH DUE RESPECT TO MY ELDER BROTHER, OPPOSITION LEADER & SENIOR COUNSEL KBF ON “MULE TUMPIKA ABANA” STATEMENT

WITH DUE RESPECT TO MY ELDER BROTHER, OPPOSITION LEADER & SENIOR COUNSEL KBF ON “MULE TUMPIKA ABANA” STATEMENT

I have read my elder brother, Opposition leader and Senior Counsel’s KBF’s comment that nominating young graduates to Parliament is “ukutumpika abana”.

2. Nominated seats exist for expertise, not gerontocracy. Article 68(2)(b) was designed to bring into Parliament special skills, youth, women and persons with disabilities who may not survive partisan elections. To say youth must first “work” defeats that purpose.

3. It is discriminatory. The same law that allows a 21-year-old to vote, pay tax and be elected in a constituency cannot be used to disqualify a 21-year-old from nomination. Age cannot be a qualification for election and a disqualification for nomination.

2. Experience is not the same as wisdom, and age is not the same as competence. Parliament is full of older people with 30 years “work experience” who have contributed nothing but noise. And history is full of young people who built nations.

3. You don’t “spoil” children by giving them responsibility; you spoil them by denying them responsibility and then complaining that they are irresponsible. How do you expect youth to gain experience if you bar them from the very place where experience is gained?

4. It contradicts our own call for generational transition. We cannot lament that politics is dominated by the old, and then attack the mechanism that brings in the young.

My elder brother, Opposition leader and Senior Counsel KBF is wrong both legally and morally. Legally, work experience is not a constitutional requirement for Parliament. Morally, you cannot call youth the future and then tell them to wait outside Parliament until they are old. You don’t spoil children by trusting them; you spoil them by excluding them.