Are We Concerned about Who Will Be Elected and Paid from Budget Funds?

Are we interested whom the journalists will name the “representative” of people? Who are the people that will represent us? Are you introduced with their programs, ideas? Do you believe that the existing parties could essentially change the model of behavior and solve the deeply rooted problems by themselves, as simply as that? Or should we purge them and discover new ones?

These were just some of the issues discussed with the 3^rd grade students of the Medical School in Sarajevo as a part of the “Youth and Elections” lecture organized by the Civitas group members of the Medical School as a part of preparations for a school competition. Amila Dedi?, representative of the Institute for Youth Development KULT, discussed this topic with the participants.

 The primary aim of the lectures was to present the importance of elections to high school students who have recently acquired their legal right to vote and thus incite them argumentedly to attend the October Elections. The lecture accentuated active youth participation, challenges and problems in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the results of research conducted by the Institute. 

“According to the data of the Central Elections Committee, the percentage of youth attendance in the local Elections in 2012 was 54%, which is in accordance with the average general attendance in elections in BiH. Comprising 21% of electorate, youth could introduce significant changes in the results of elections. However, youth are still not voting in full capacity, mostly due to their belief that their votes cannot make a difference or for not knowing which political option to trust,” stated, among other things, the Institute’s representative in her address.

The students discussed the numerous social topics of their interest – departure of numerous health workers abroad and the increase in enrollment quotas in medical high schools. The current situation, as they emphasized, seems to indicate that export of labor force is the policy of the system, that there is vast corruption in employment in health institutions and general corruption in the health care system, so their opinions, attitudes and choices are of vast importance and they do not have the luxury of acting apolitically.