KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 10 — The anticipated Youth Parliament kicked off to a docile start today, despite some potentially explosive issues tabled for debate in this half of the session.

Three topics were tabled for debates so far and only the third, a proposal for the government to establish a “Youth Soft Skills Institute”, touched on potentially thorny subjects such as growing unemployment rates among graduates.

But the subject failed to trigger intense debate.

Representatives were coy and only provided positive ideas for the proposed programme, without critically dissecting the root cause of the problems facing graduates attributed to government policies.

“I suppose it could be a bit more critical,” a representative who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Malay Mail Online.

Unlike the actual Parliament, the youth version is not divided into the government and the opposition, which takes away the critical element of the concept, PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli said.

The Pandan MP suggested the reason why the Youth Parliament may not be as effective as anticipated was due to alleged discrimination in how the representatives are elected.

“The nomination are all vetted so it is only limited for a small group of people... so with that process you cannot divide them into opposition and the government

“It was meant to be a show, a show you will get,” Rafizi told Malay Mail Online.

The federal opposition lawmaker also alleged the idea of the Youth Parliament was aimed at grooming future Umno MPs.

“It’s just another stepping stone... for budding future Umno politicians, an avenue to get Khairy’s cronies promoted,” Rafizi claimed, referring to Youth and Sports Ministed Khairy Jamaluddin.

Khairy’s ministry oversees the Youth Parliament programme.

Umno Youth member Shahril Suffian Hamdan and a delegate from Youth Parliament dismissed, however, allegations that there were external orders to keep the debates from being critical of the government.

“I don’t think I would categorise it that way. I think I found the quality has been quite impressive. The range of topics have been quite broad,” Shahril told Malay Mail Online.

According to Shahril, delegates would first vote for which of the 30 proposals be tabled for debate and many picked issues they felt were relevant to the youth today.

“I think in many cases where the depth of the discussions and willingness to be quite critical of the different ideas have been quite apparent,” he said.

Key issues like rising racism and religious fundamentalism were not included in the list of topics for debates, but Shahril said there was nothing untoward in that.

Nine topics were listed for debates today, all touching on youth topics ranging from employment, education and disaster relief.

According to Bernama, the Youth Parliament, announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak during the Gathering Of A Million Youths on May 28, 2011, was among six initiatives of the Youth Transformation Laboratory implemented by the Youth and Sport Ministry.

The National Youth Council (MBM) is the co-ordinator of the programme.

Utusan Malaysia reported that each state has a representation quota based on the number of youths there. The current quota for every state is 1:100,000.

Selangor has the biggest representation with 25 members, followed by Johor with 14, 11 from Sabah and 10 from Sarawak with the rest being from other states.

In 2012, the first trial session was held by the ministry to gauge the effectiveness of the system and the module used in its formation.

Then Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek had also said that the ministry was also looking into providing Youth Parliament members with their own building, similar to the current parliamentary structure currently.