19 act and going all the way to opening up political space by allowing free access to the media, and ensuring that each and every party can campaign in any part of the country without fear. The youth said that it is impossible to have popular selection of decision makers when Parliament has 30 Presidential appointees. Already one party has a huge advantage and only one person has control over them. Thus the appointees will do as the President pleases because they feel obligated and grateful to him for their positions. Popular Control Over Decision Makers This dealt with the power that ordinary citizens and civics enjoy for keeping control over the decision makers and limiting their powers whilst in office. According to the results of the survey, the youth believe that there is no popular control over decision makers in Zimbabwe. · · · · · 65% versus 9% believe that the executive is unaccountable 57% versus 14% believe that there is poor public accountability and participation 57% versus 8% believe that the law making process is inadequate 82% say access to information is inadequate as opposed to 5% who say it is adequate. 46% versus 23% say there is inadequate accessibility and independence Again the margins of difference are large – about 50 percentage points or more – but the largest difference was seen in respect of the provision and availability of information, where over 80% felt that there was no open access to information. This strongly supports the conclusion of the Afrobarometer referred to above (see pages 4 and 5). The youth expressed the view that they have no control over decision makers because they were chosen to represent a constituency by their political leader, not by the people. This decreases the people’s power as they are not aware why that particular person was chosen and they are afraid to question the leaders. The youth felt that this can be remedied by having the opportunity to participate in the very initial stages of selecting candidates at primary level elections. The youth want to participate in political and social life, but are generally not given the opportunity to do so. There is no culture of questioning decisions made by those in power, and this was said to apply not only to politics but to all aspects of society. The youth are not supposed to question their elders, as they are considered to be wiser because of experience. The youth stated that culture has to change to allow the views of the youth to be taken into consideration, but, before this can be done, the youth themselves have to be clear on their issues and bring them up in a respectful manner if they want to be listened to. The youth also stated that they are worried about the calibre of the present leaders, as they feel they frequently do not have the adequate skills for the positions that they are in. This situation comes about because communities are not given an opportunity to vote for someone in their area whom they feel could represent them at the decision making level. If the candidates came from the communities, the people would have had a chance to study the candidates and decide who is best. The current scenario is that the leader imposes a person who is only visible during the campaign and election period, and disappears until the next election. This means there is no access to the MP once elected. Youths are used as tools to get them where they want to be and discarded afterwards. In most cases, once elected the MP becomes unapproachable and the community do not know how to approach him/her, and are not sure what kind of issues should be brought to the MP - people are afraid to talk to IDASA: Zimbabwe at the Cross-Roads: Views of Zimbabwean citizens on democracy and transitional justice.