[Press release] Youth organisation GroenLinks to Amsterdam municipal elections with its own list

AMSTERDAM, 1 April 2020 - DWARS Amsterdam, the local political youth organisation affiliated with GroenLinks, is going to participate in the Amsterdam municipal elections in 2022 with its own list. In doing so, DWARS aims to bring a young sound to the council.

DWARS Amsterdam finds it incredibly important that young people are represented in politics. However, during the previous municipal elections in Amsterdam, there was not much choice on the GroenLinks list. The few twenty-somethings were also at the very bottom. So the current GroenLinks faction now consists only of people over 30. GroenLinks Amsterdam does not even deliver the city's youngest councillor: Don Ceder of ChristenUnie walks away with that honour.

DWARS Amsterdam's own list will consist entirely of candidates aged between 18 and 28. It will also have its own political programme. Chairman Sabine Scharwachter: “Broadly speaking, we will follow the course of the parent party, but we will also place our own accents. After all, that is what we are called DWARS for”.

These accents will not only consist of typical youth themes, such as youth housing and a night metro. The youth party also wants to draw attention to issues where decisiveness is currently sometimes lacking, such as social shelters for the homeless and undocumented. “The city belongs to everyone. We therefore prefer to place the problems experienced by young people here in the broader perspective of gentrification. Young people also have an interest in a mixed and inclusive city.”