5.2 Youth participation in representative democracy
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Young people as voters
The age limit giving the right to vote in all elections and referenda is set at 18 years. There is no other special legislation for any specific group.
There are no exact statistics about the turnout of young people in elections and not many studies deal with this subject in detail. Czech voting and statistical legislation do not allow the age of the voters to be collected centrally. However, thanks to the data collected through surveys it is clear that youth participation (of those aged 18-29) in elections is lower (47-52%) compared to the general population (58-64.5%).
The reasons young people give are also different from the general population: (in order of importance)
1. Holidays, away from home, free time;
2. No interest in politics, no understanding of politics;
3. Too much work.
| Main reasons for absenting in elections in Chamber of Deputies 2013 according to age groups | |||||
| Illness, health, too old | Days off, away from home, free time | Too much work | No interest in politics, I do not understand politics | Distrust, dissatisfaction, voting does not make sense | |
| 18 - 29 years | 5 | 45 | 28 | 38 | 16 |
| 30 - 39 years | 11 | 21 | 22 | 25 | 20 |
| 40 - 49 years | 13 | 26 | 28 | 18 | 14 |
| 50 - 59 years | 13 | 2 | 16 | 8 | 22 |
| 60 years and above | 58 | 6 | 6 | 11 | 28 |
| Total | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
Young people as political representatives
There is no special legislation dealing with young people as members of political parties. Parties youth wings are registered as ordinary NGOs and no major party counts more than several hundred members. The majority of these NGOs are members of the National Youth Council.
The age limit for the right to stand as a candidate in the parliamentary elections is set at 21 years. To stand for the Senate and President, it is 40 years. For the municipal and regional elections, the limit is 18 years. There is no other special legislation for any specific group, nor are there specific provisions regarding quotas.
After the 2017 election, the average age of parliamentarians in the House of Deputies was 47.5 years, a decrease of almost than 2.5 years compared to the state elections in 2010. Only 10 MPs out of 200 younger than 30 were elected in 2017, amounting to 5% of total representatives. The situation got worse after the elections in 2021, which marked an average age of deputies of almost 50 years, an increase by 2.25 years on average.
Analyzing the data of the Czech Statistical Office about age groups and elections, we can observe some trends:
- More young people, especially in the category of 25 - 30 years, run for the election.
- voters do not trust young candidates as much as in the early 1990s and in relative percentages and share in the population, young people are less elected than previously. The positive trend is only by young women, who are elected more often (25 % in 2021, the highest share in history) but still do not reflect their equal share in society.
- Young people in elected positions are mostly at the local level, in Parliament they are more or less still an exception.
- The 2017 elections to the House of Deputies showed that there is a significant difference between the voting preferences of younger generations and older ones. As the participation of young people in elections is lower than the national average, most representatives reflect the political preferences of older generations.