A WEB

Promoting young voters’ political participation is becoming a higher priority in any modern society. Since Kazakhstan introduced a mandatory quota of 30 per cent of women and young people into voting lists of political parties, the growing role of youth has been supported by the recent reform of the electoral legislation of Kazakhstan.

To tackle the concerns raised regarding a lack of confidence in elections and political passivity among the youths, the Central Election Commission of Kazakhstan has hosted various programs with the aim of promoting young voter’s political interest and knowledge.

The Central Election Commission of Kazakhstan held the Student Internet Olympiad on the theme, "Electoral Systems of the Countries of the World", together with the Association of Universities of Kazakhstan that includes 88 universities, which has become an annual tradition in Kazakhstan since 2019.

This year, the Olympiad is dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan and was held from 22 to 24 September in two rounds:

1) interactive testing for knowledge on the characteristics of electoral systems in the Republic of Kazakhstan, CIS states, and other countries around the world, through the platform of the CEC of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

354 students from 37 universities of all regions of Kazakhstan registered to participate in the testing (for comparison: 170 students from 29 universities in 2019; 155 from 32 universities in 2020).

2) a debate tournament, "Best Debater", where 11 winners of the first round performed in real time before the National Jury. The contestants were offered a challenge-response format in the form of a pitch presentation or a video clip on topics that brought a wide public response during the past election campaigns in social networks and popular publics.

The topics for the pitch were drawn by lot. The jury evaluated the performances of the participants based on the developed criteria, according to which the intellectual and analytical potential, the argumentation and consistency of the speech of the students who spoke, were assessed.

 

It is worth mentioning that the national Olympiad is a qualifying stage for an international project in partnership with International Institute for Monitoring Development of Democracy, Parliamentarism and Observance of Electoral Rights of Citizens of the Member States of the Interparliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States (IIMDD IPA CIS). The winner and second prize-winners of the Internet Olympiad in December will take part in the international youth school, “Youth Parliamentarism as the basis for sustainable political development and partnership of the CIS countries”, which will take place from 29 November to 5 December this year under the auspices of the IIMDD IPA CIS (St. Petersburg).