One of the most important elements of democracy is political participation, especially that of youth.
\nThe involvement of young people in the political process is of great importance, as demonstrated by the deep political developments in Tunisia after the revolution to which the youth have contributed a great deal.
\nAnd after leading the march of change in the revolution of 17 December 2010 – 14 January 2011, the youth found themselves aside the circle of political action in the absence of legislation that encourages their involvement in public affairs and their participation in the political life. This caused a lot of frustration and disappointment amongst them and they set out to find other outlets to bring about change. Unfortunately, some of them ended up embracing extremism to destabilize the process of democracy that \u2013as far as they\u2019re concerned- has contributed to their alienation and their exclusion from political action and decision-making.
\nAnd while the Tunisian Constitution has stressed in the eighth chapter that \u201cyoung people are a powerful force in building the country\u201d and stated that \u201cthe electoral law guarantees the representation of young people in local councils\u201d in chapter 133, there is still a dire need to support that by the revision of the political parties\u2019 law in order to achieve two major goals: firstly, to improve the presence of youth within the central structures of political parties through a gradual implementation process; secondly, to get the political parties to dedicate a share of their capacity building budgets to train the youth and the young recruits within the parties.
\nIt is in this context that we launch the initiative of \u201cimproving the political participation of youth through better representation within the central structures of political parties\u201d.<\/p>\n