By News Express
It seems unbelievable, yet it is true. History has been made, with a teenage secondary school graduate winning election to become the youngest ever parliamentarian in African history.
Proscovia Alengot Oromait, 19, last week won election to become a member of the parliament of the east African country, Uganda. She is also the second youngest in the world, according to NTV. New Vision reported that the youngest-ever elected MP was Anton Abele, an activist who was elected to Swedish Parliament at age 18.
Oromait (shown in photo) was planning to go to the university but changed her mind and went into politic after her father, Michael Oromait, a member of parliament in Usuk County, eastern Uganda, died last July.
A report in Ugandan news website New Vision said that the young girl beat eight other candidates to win the seat in last week’s ballot, earning more than double the votes of the nearest runner-up.
The Associated Press (AP) described Oromait Junior’s election as a boon to President Yoweri Museveni’s ruling party, the National Resistance Movement. The international news agency however quoted some Ugandans as describing her election as inappropriate since she is just out of high school.
“I don’t think she was prepared for this. She had even never voted,” Nicholas Opio, a political analyst in Kampala, told the AP.
Michael Mukula, an MP and one of the ruling party’s deputy chairmen, told the AP: “I am a bit concerned and taken aback because of her lack of experience and lack of exposure. This is not a constituency you want to give a child of that age to shoulder.”
