This weekend, Austria becomes the first European country to give its 16 year olds the right to vote in a general election. It has however brought up alot of widespread controversy and critisism, even from the teenagers going to the ballot box for the first time themselves. The new move from changing the voting age from 18 to 16 was passed last year by Austria’s grand coalition government of conservatives and Social Democrats, The law was supported by four of the five parties in parliament, but opposed by the right-wing Freedom Party, and now new Austrian voters ages 16 – 17, 200,000 of them will get get a chance to vote next Sunday.
Alot of critisism has been said, that the youngsters have not been given enough time to vote given the snap elections, also some of the would-be voters can purchase beer and wine even though they cannot drive or do military service. Even some of the teenagers themselves do not agree with the new policy. “I don’t agree with the idea of teenagers of my age being given the right to vote,” said Julia Tauschek, a 16-year-old high school pupil from the Austrian town of Linz yesterday. “We simply don’t know enough about politics and we are not taught much about them at school either.”
The party members of course feel that we should be showing young people how politics can change the world.” A social democrat MP. As the contest at the moment seems to be neck and neck, alot of attention will be aimed to gain the new generation of votes.
