Members of the European parliament are trying to boost the young voters turnout in elections by using tactics such as Selfies and a dance video. According to the newspaper Wall Street Journal, several MEPs decided to join in with the latest Internet craze and create their own version of Pharrell Williams’s “Happy” music video, in order to woo the youth back.
In the music video they created, entitled ‘Happy Voting’, famous rappers and MEPs demonstrate their dancing skills while encouraging Europe’s youth to vote in elections. So far, “HappyVoting” has been viewed more than 71,000 times on YouTube.
In a separate effort. the Party of European Socialists asked supporters to tweet “selfies” with its top candidate Martin Schulz, a bearded bespectacled German, coining the hashtag #schulzie. The Alliance of Liberals & Democrats in Europe promised a day with its top candidate, former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, for the best ‘EU selfie’.
As part of this general effort, a rap battle was also held in a room of the European Parliament. The music event is being promoted online by MTVvoices, the music channel’s digital platform.
Using the language… of hip hop , many MEPs took the stage and paired up with rappers who translated their ideas into rhymes.
“It’s like simultaneous interpreting,” said George Chatzimarkakis, a Greek-German lawmaker who was about to take the stage for the free-market Alliance of Liberals & Democrats in Europe.
More than 600 people gathered at the Parliament’s “Espace Yehudi Menuhin,” named for the violinist, a room that is more often used for piano recitals and chamber-music concerts.
It should be noted that since the EU’s first parliamentary elections in 1979, turnout has been dropping off. In the most recent vote in 2009, just 43% of potential voters cast ballots. Of those under 25, a mere 29% turned up at the polls. For this reason, representatives of the major parties in the European parliament decided to put the language of diplomacy aside for a night and adopt the language of… hip hop.
