“Parliament needs new blood” : Opposition MP calls on youths to contest 2020 General Election
Opposition MP Terry Coe is calling on youths to contest next year’s election.
Coe says Parliament needs new blood and there are capable young people who have leadership qualities.
As part of supporting youth participation in politics, Coe says there should be a series of youth parliament sessions on the island.
“ My views at this moment is to try and track the youths to put in their names for the elections next year and what we should try and do now is run some series of youth parliaments with the youths nominating people from each village and some people from the commonwealth and they elect their own speaker and the cabinet of the day and they answer the question and motions that have been put to the normal assembly meeting and that will give plenty of practise to see how they answer it and also the public can listen to those and hopefully support them, the ones who speak up well and discuss the problems and the motions and that would help their experience and then when the elections come around next year the youths should put a member of each village and some members for the commonwealth at least six and to see how they do but we need to run the youth parliament from each, say December , January , February , March, one each month to give those people some experience in the Parliament.”
The Opposition MP has expressed publicly in an Assembly session earlier this year that Parliament needs new blood.
“We need new blood and there are some very good youths that have got good qualifications and good experiences and could help this country do a lot better than what we are doing. The idea is to get new blood in and let the people elect who they want from those youths’ members.”
Coe also says he will still contest the elections next year.
“Yes, I’ll stand again, I’ll put my name up if I get back in well and good. If I don’t that’s alright, I’ll still fix motor vehicles and do some gardening so that’s alright, I’ve got no worries.”
The date of Niue’s general election is yet to be formally announced.
