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The Nairobian

What Gen Z should do, not do to defeat older politicians in 2027

Elias Mokua

By Elias Mokua | Nov 14, 2024

**Anti-Finance bill protestors demonstrate in Nairobi. July 2, 2024.** [Jonah Onyango, Standard]

Listen Gen Z. Those of you who have decided to vie for elective positions in the next general elections are better off standing as independent candidates. If you must, form a very loose young people coalition under which you can join your efforts to push for a national agenda. The coalition should have short-term rotational leadership from the beginning to avoid creating a central force that will easily be targeted for manipulation by your more experienced and resourced competitors.

Let us face it, other than, ODM, other political parties lack the organisational capacity to withstand wave after wave of new and popular political parties. ODM, with all its weaknesses including patronisation, is the nearest case study we have of a political party with a semblance of functional structures. There are no other parties with a history you can latch onto. But, even within ODM, some sharks can ruin your political dream.

Some of us, older citizens, fully support your cause to correct our failures to steady the economy and imbue values into our political space. Corruption in Kenya has crippled many sectors. This also means young people, despite having degree certificates, have no jobs. Available jobs are grabbed by those in the know. Some of us do not want to support you because we fear you will take our power to control you.

The desire to vie for elective posts among you, Gen Z and the younger Millennials, is good for an authentic transformation of our political culture. You have a different mindset. You are global in orientation and speak a common Kenyan language. You care about your present and future. A majority of the 50-plus empathise with you but have no concrete ways to turn around the prevalent political culture that centralises power, patronises young people, punishes new innovative ideas and laments a generation that does not toe the traditional line.

Running as independent candidates in the next generation will provide you with the freedom you need to think differently and positively. You will be under intense pressure to join the so-called popular parties to increase your chances of winning seats. You will also be pushed left and right to abandon your transformative agenda with a promise your ideas will be integrated into a larger political party manifesto. Indeed, it will be captured in the manifesto. But, that is as far as it can go.

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You risk missing out on a ticket to run on a bigger party ticket. You will be played games till the last minute, and you will get time-barred. Consequently, you will be forced to either bow out of the race or support someone else. You are better off running as an independent candidate because if you have what it takes to win an election, you can overcome the many obstacles on your way and still win.

Listen Gen Z. The older folks in politics are no walkovers. They have the resources and the experience to run you out of town. However, they lack the youthfulness that you have. Your generation has the advantage of technology to coordinate individual campaigns and build young people's psyche. You have what it takes to strongly compete with the veterans.

To transform Kenya into a 21st century country, you have to be at your best in generational mobilisation. You also have a big advantage over the older generations that feel they have let you down. I have been in meetings where debates hot up so much that those who are not listening to young people as the present leaders are left with conversational bruises. Evidence favours young people fighting for political power on the ballot in the next elections.

You have to resist persuasive campaigns to dampen or slow your transformative agenda. Running as an independent candidate will also give you a strong voice once elected because you will continue to consult as party-less leaders under a loose near-structureless coalition. Politics, as you have seen it in practice, can be deceptive at many levels. You need majority numbers both in Parliament and County Assemblies to transform Kenya.

Dr Mokua is the executive director of Loyola Centre for Media and Communication