John Muchenje
LOCAL civic group, 4-H Zimbabwe Foundation, says it is lobbying government to introduce a code of conduct to regulate the conduct of youth during elections.
4-H director John Muchenje told NewsDay that the youth governance charter must include guiding principles on how they should conduct themselves during elections.
“We have already started engaging the country’s three main political parties, Zanu PF, Citizens Coalition for Change and the MDC to deliberate on the proposed document,” Muchenje said.
He said his organisation was working closely with the Parliamentary Youth Caucus to ensure that the document gets Parliament buy-in.
“We want the document to be youth-driven rather than be a consultant document. We will be holding outreach programmes on the issue. After drafting the document, it will be taken to Parliament. We have already engaged the Parliamentary Youth Caucus and they have accepted the plan and we are working with them closely to ensure that after we have done the draft it will go through Parliament.”
Zimbabwe is set to hold by-elections next week with general elections scheduled for 2023.
Youths are often used by political parties to perpetrate political violence.
