We should all watch the political debate tonight, televised live, from a sold out Cas Di Cultura when the battle for Millennial votes unfolds.
(Generation Y: Early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s as ending birth years.)
Basically there are about two government seats on the line, with more than 4,700 new voters who will be allowed to voice their political opinion for the first time in September.
The initiative for the debate, by Queeny Bergen, is quite extraordinary. Queeny, a lawyer by training and an online marketeer by profession reports she first organized two or three encounters within small groups to try to obtain more information on the various political platforms. Then her friends at Co.Lab. – a community where start ups, young entrepreneurs, creative geniuses, artists, and techies in Aruba meet to co-share, co-create, and collaborate — asked her to think big.
And she did. Together with a crew of 20 volunteers they conducted a survey and identified the issues-du-jour, environment, education, economy, law-enforcement, immigration, and have been working since April on the organization of a public political debate, designed to satisfy the curiosity and the need-to-know of Millennials.
The ticket for tonight’s event was Awg 10, and the place sold out; the rest of us will have to watch it on TV.
On a personal note, Queeny whose full name is QueenAnne – mom was a romantic – says that she surprised herself by finding politics so riveting, and complex. When she graduated law, she worked for three years as an attorney, then in true Millennial fashion decided it was not her calling. She now works for a small online marketing company as a specialist, servicing clients in the business community, which makes her much happier.
The Millennial debate came into the limelight this week when Aruba’s government party released to the press that it will not be participating.
Queeny’s response is that from the very first start, the Millennial debate required the participating of the head of the party, not any other candidates, and the green party’s desire to send their Millennial candidate to debate was not acceptable, since the goal of the event is to feature top bananas.
We’ve been working for 16 weeks, she shares, politics are addictive, as far as we are concerned 10 parties will show up tonight for a 1 minute presentation each, at the start, then a Q&A session with emcees Judelca Briceno and Edward Erasmus will follow. The emcees are both sharp, highly educated professionals; then a smaller encounter in groups of three will ensue. The evening will run from 7pm to 10:30pm, and we should expect more rehearsed politicians this time. We hear they have been training!
