Youth movement set to fill vacuum if Raila and ODM join government

President William Ruto appears to be focusing on using opposition leader Raila Odinga and his ODM members in parliament to recover full political control after the heavy turbulence caused by the Gen Z protests.

His Kenya Kwanza MPs, who form the majority in parliament, have been under siege from the young people, comprising about 70 percent of the population since early last month when they voted for the contentious finance bill.

Before the storm created by the bill, President Ruto had initiated a campaign across the African continent for Raila to be the next chair of the African Union (AU) secretariat in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

But Ruto now needs Raila for political survival and more control of parliament with an astounding majority that ODM will provide, even as the plot for his retirement from politics at the AU continues.

The Kenya Kwanza administration is not only weakening the opposition but also targeting the mainstream media through harassment of journalists and denial of advertising revenues to major media houses.

As to whether President Ruto’s manoeuvres will succeed, only time will tell because of the brewing time bomb that has come from an emerging restless generation of young adults that is more lethal than the ineffective and now seemingly gullible opposition.

Prof Gitile Naituli of Multi-Media University thinks the government working with the opposition, is a total waste of time because it can only create a false sense of calmness before the bigger storm.

“The calm storm is not going to last long. The forest and the monkeys remain the same. Ruto is busy painting the leopard with the colours of a zebra and the cheetah with a deer. King Lion has declared itself a vegetarian, but clouds are gathering, and when the heavy rain pours, you know what will happen to the paint,” says Naituli.

He also thinks it is risky for Raila to take ODM into government, instead of using the Azimio la Umoja coalition because a legal battle over the leadership of both houses will most likely ensue.

By joining the government, ODM is supposed to lose the minority share because they will have joined the majority side, but Naituli sees the party getting into another ugly confrontation with its partner as it tries to cling to the minority leadership positions.

In 2021, ODM fought with other coalition partners Ford Kenya and ANC over the political parties fund, leading to the departures of Moses Wetangula and Musalia Mudavadi from Azimio to Kenya Kwanza.

Sources within ODM circles indicate that they have already negotiated for positions reserved for them by President Ruto, but the decision to hand over the list was delayed because of the emerging fallout in Azimio.

Apart from Raila, other leaders from the coalition led by Kalonzo Musyoka (Wiper), Martha Karua (Narc Kenya), Eugene Wamalwa (DAP-K), Jeremiah Kioni (Jubilee) and Peter Munya (PNU) have all declined to join the so-called government of national unity being created by President Ruto.

“With constituent parties declining to join the toxic marriage, ODM will be exposed. It is however my argument that Ruto will use his powers to have ODM retain its minority leadership while enjoying government positions so that he can control both houses and the government,” says Naituli.

But the elephant in the room is that the Gen Z movement is not included in the political arrangements, although wishful thinking from some people in Kenya Kwanza is that they will belatedly join in the realignment efforts.

Gen Z and the millennials will most likely remain unfazed because they are not looking for positions but are instead advocating for good governance, integrity, transparency, an end to corruption, inclusivity, and accountability.

President Ruto will maybe try to incorporate some Gen Z into the government, hoping that it will quell the rebellion, but on the other hand, the remaining Azimio coalition devoid of ODM will try to support the Gen Z movement from the shadows.

A Nairobi politician who also previously served as a Town Clerk in the city, Philip Kisia, also thinks the government's multi-pronged approach to dealing with the current crisis is not well thought out.

“The use of brutal force, abductions, kidnappings, intimidating mainstream media and other businesses owned by the media owners and giving advertisement revenue to one small media house whose shareholders we don’t know is wrong and will not help in the long run,” says Kisia.

He argued that a justification of giving public funds to only one media house which controls a very small percentage of the market is needed because business given to private entities must be shared.

The government has demanded that the media observe articles 33(1) and 33(2) of the Constitution, which provides for freedom of expression but also gives limitations of the extent to which they can be enjoyed.

“They are trying to take us back to the dark Kanu days when media houses were shut down and journalists arbitrarily arrested, which we are going to resist. We are over 55 million Kenyans and they cannot arrest us all,” says Kisia.

Asked about the marriage between the opposition and government to cool things down, Kisia thinks removing Raila and ODM from their ranks means there will be no serious opposition

He believes Raila may be genuinely doing it for national good but fears that there will be no guarantee of such a government checking itself when the opposition will have been completely weakened.

“The only hope is that there is a new opposition in millennials and Gen Z, whose anger, hopelessness and frustration is not going to be quelled by politicians sticking to their old habits,” he added.

So the only option the president has is to deal with the pertinent issues raised by the young people who are in their millions, by creating jobs for them, otherwise anything else is only temporary.

Kisia is reputed for stamping out corruption when he served at city hall with the anti-corruption report of 2010 ranking the City Council as the most reformed and collaborative institution at the time.

He thinks president Ruto has paid lip service to corruption and it did not require young protesting Kenyans to remind him that his government was corrupt and tribalism was also rife in some key state parastatals.

Kisia further argues that without Raila, the remaining opposition will struggle to convince the young generation that they can work with them, because they have been part of the problem, and some have also been in power for so many years.

“We must now prepare for a generational change, so that these young people to take over, although the process has to be gradual and well planned. Things can never be same again. We cannot run this country the way we are doing,” added Kisia.

Political analyst Martin Andati also weighed in, describing the government as ill-equipped to deal with the challenges from the more intellectually superior youth, who are more exposed to information and technology.

He added that the government has been outwitted because its spinning machinery is very poor, largely due to the caliber of bloggers they hire and the approach they use.

“They need people who can engage with facts and put out a narrative they can defend, not fellows who just receive messages and forward them to other people without any critical value addition,” says Andati.

The government has threatened to shut down media stations that will not follow its broadcasting guidelines but Andati wonders how much it can do in an age where almost all the youth have smartphones and can share pictures in real-time.

He says the Communication Authority of Kenya can threaten mainstream media but they cannot stop pictures taken in the streets from going viral, especially when opinion polls suggest that the protests have an average support of about 80 percent.

Speaking about Ruto’s dalliance with Raila and ODM, Andati hailed the opposition leader for the effort he has put in to shape the political history of the country and its future.

He however thinks the ODM leader is now tired, and Kenyans may be expecting too much from him because his best years are now behind him.

“ODM will shore up Ruto’s support in parliament, but the actual numbers from his base, both among coalition partners and in the general population have dropped significantly because they are now with the Gen Z and millennials,” says Andati.

Although Ruto will get more votes in parliament, MPs will also be held hostage by the masses who will pressure them not to approve some decisions including approval of cabinet secretaries with questionable integrity.

The MPs are going to find themselves in a very tricky situation because on one side they have to sing to the tune of Ruto and Raila while at the same satisfying the needs of a very agitated electorate ready to “greet them” using phones.

According to Andati, the remaining opposition leaders led by Kalonzo, will also struggle to fit in and could lose relevance if they are not careful because the young people have no room for them if they keep on regurgitating old narratives.

He cautions them to stop being reactionary like issuing statements, only when the president has spoken or is about to address the country as has happened in recent weeks.

Raila and ODM should also expect a backlash from Gen Z, if the huge social media outrage that greeted his announcement of supporting national dialogue is anything to go by.

Andati says more vitriol against him and ODM will come when names he will present for appointment into cabinet are announced by president Ruto in the coming weeks.

“The blogsphere, X and Tik Tok are going to be on fire before the war goes to the streets. You will see the massive social media war by the youth because they have the numbers, ideas and brains. They are going to punch a lot of holes in those names and then ventilate in the streets,” says Andati.