AHY Urges Youth to Become Politically Literate to Prevent Incompetent Individuals from Dominating
AHY expressed this during a speech at a high school student forum in Cirendeu, South Tangerang, on Tuesday (5/5/2026). According to him, young people need political literacy to build critical reasoning.
“Events like this RenTalks also build good political literacy for young people, including developing critical thinking. Because we must continuously sharpen our critical faculties,” said AHY.
On this occasion, the Chairman of the Democrat Party urged young people to understand politics. By understanding politics, it can prevent incompetent individuals from leading politics in Indonesia.
“Because without understanding politics, especially by staying away from politics, we are essentially allowing politics to be dominated and managed by those who lack competence and also lack integrity,” he explained.
In addition, he wants young people to have idealism. He even shared that he was once sceptical about Indonesian politics, but his views changed as he studied it.
“In the past, I was antipathetic; I was also sceptical about politics. I used to think that politics was all dirty, then justifying any means, anything goes except losing, and so on,” he revealed.
“So it’s frightening and also makes us uncomfortable. But it turns out that after I studied it, we can do a lot if we become part of making that change. Hopefully, from this room, politicians will eventually emerge who become leaders in our beloved country,” he added.
Furthermore, AHY advised young people to be more critical in capturing information or phenomena. Because in this era of technological advancement, artificial intelligence is often used for negative purposes.
“So we must continuously sharpen our critical thinking. Thirdly, as I asked earlier, everyone surely uses technology, including AI and digital platforms. You are the generation that is very close to it, so it must be leveraged for progress. Including in building positive opinions, fighting hoaxes, fighting post-truth politics that divides,” he said.