Claiming the space: The inclusion and participation of the youth in Kenya's 11th and 12th Parliaments

The experience of Youth MPs: Challenges and opportunities
Youth MPs experience a number of challenges in the discharge of their work, but are also able to leverage on
the opportunities available, such as the use of technology, to effectively carry out their mandate. From the
interviews undertaken, a key challenge that young MPs pointed out was that Parliamentary tradition seems
to favour longevity, whereby Members who have served for long periods of time and are experienced in
parliamentary affairs are given priority both during debates in plenary as well as in other work of Parliament.
In addition, some older Members have negative perceptions of youth MPs and look down upon them. This
makes it difficult to discharge their work on an equal footing with the counterpart MPs.
This matter did arise in plenary in the National Assembly on Thursday, 30th June, 2019 where, following a
query by the Leader of the Majority Party as to why youth MPs were missing from the Chamber. A young
MP pointed out that part of the reason youth MPs didn’t always attend proceedings was that they felt the
presiding officer was biased against them when it came to allocating speaking time during key debates,
whereby they would not be given the opportunity to speak, compared to the older members. 104 On the
other hand, one of the presiding officers interviewed mentioned that some young MPs do not appear keen
to debate in the House and, once in the Chamber, they retreat to the back benches and do not request to
speak.
104 The clip may be found on the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H72lWswSs4o&t=1s (Accessed on October 20,
2019)
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CLAIMING THE SPACE: