The Regional and Local Authority Elections in the Omaheke region, especially in the Aminius constituency and the Leonardville local authority, revealed a painful truth: the turnout of young people was extremely disappointing.
As someone who works daily with the youth and advocates for their empowerment, I am deeply concerned.
We speak loudly about wanting change.
We complain about unemployment, poor service delivery, lack of development, and leaders who forget us the moment they enter office.
Yet when it’s time to vote – the time to make that change real – our polling stations are empty, and our youth are nowhere to be found.
This is a crisis we can no longer ignore.
THE REALITIES
When young people fail to vote, we not only silence our voices, we hand over power to political parties and individuals who did not even earn the majority support of the community.
In local authority elections, council seats are often filled based on a proportional representation system.
That means a party with very few votes can still make it onto the Leonardville village council because of surplus points.
Meanwhile the majority of young people, who make up the largest demographic in the constituency, have zero influence simply because they did not show up.
While we stay home, thinking our vote “doesn’t matter”, we give away leadership for free.
If we continue like this, we will wake up in another five years with the same frustrations, the same poor services, the same lack of youth representation, and with only ourselves to blame.
ACTION = CHANGE
The young people of Leonardville, Aminius, and the entire Omaheke region, must understand a simple truth: no one will save us if we do not stand up for ourselves.
We want jobs, skills development, better infrastructure, youth spaces, support for entrepreneurship, accountable leaders.
But how can we demand these things when we are not part of the process that chooses who leads us?
Democracy is not something that happens to us, it is something we participate in.
Right now, we are participating by staying away, by being silent, by giving up our power.
If we, the future leaders, do not vote, we must ask ourselves:
Do we truly want development? Do we truly want leadership that listens?
Do we truly want a better Leonardville?
Change does not start on social media. Change does not start in WhatsApp groups.
Change does not start at bars, at corners, or in conversations where we complain but take no action.
Change starts at the ballot box.
Until the youth stand up, register, show up, and vote, things will remain the same.
THE WAY FORWARD
As the Leonardville Youth Empowerment Group, we commit ourselves to: educating young people on civic responsibility, encouraging voter registration, hosting youth engagement sessions and political literacy programmes, challenging all leaders to speak directly to the youth, and mobilising young voters in every future election.
But we cannot do this alone. Every young person must take responsibility.
We cannot keep allowing leadership to fall into the hands of people who do not represent our needs simply because we did not participate.
We cannot continue giving council seats to parties through surplus votes while the youth remain spectators in a game that determines their future.
Leonardville is our home.
Aminius is our constituency. Omaheke is our region. Namibia is our country.
If we don’t vote, someone else will choose our leaders for us.
If we don’t participate, we will continue to live under leadership we did not choose.
If we don’t act now, we will be the generation that surrendered its future without a fight.
I call on every young person to wake up, stand up, and step into the power that belongs to us.
The future is ours, but only if we claim it.
- Anton Geinub, chairperson, Leonardville Youth Empowerment Group.
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