Encourage the youth to come out and vote
The youth have frequently been heard rubbishing politics, terming politicians as serving their own interests.
Kenyans have been discussing why the youth may be key participants in the coming election, why they may spearhead the choice of the candidate who will look into their grievances, how they will play a big role in influencing the choice of leaders and how they will be the majority in the numbers.
The IEBC has released a report on voter registration and, with 22 million registered voters in the country, the youth do not constitute half the number. The youth who have registered as voters are worryingly few.
The youth have frequently been heard rubbishing politics, terming politicians as serving their own interests. Unemployment still remains a great challenge among the youth and many are now even engaging in scamming people for money, costing some their lives.
A major concern is why the youth are not the majority registered voters.
The youth need a voice of hope, a voice that they seemingly do not see among politicians, and this explains why a majority view elections as a waste of time.
Despite various leaders promising them job opportunities, the youth are still reluctant to vote.
What is still not known is whether those who have registered will turn up to vote.
The IEBC has a big role to play in ensuring that the elections will be free and fair. Failure of electronic kits proved to be one of the challenges in the last election and led to doubts on the authenticity of the results. The commission should ensure that the gadgets do not fail to ensure credibility in the whole process.
The media also has a big role to play. The media has played a major role in giving the youth a voice, but this has not influenced the youth to come out and register in large numbers.
The youth factor, therefore, clearly still remains a major concern in our politics. How will the mind-set of the youth be changed to help them realise that they are the majority and they can spearhead the change they want through the ballot?
Brian Ogotti, Kisumu
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The government has not managed to create enough employment opportunities to absorb the youth. To survive, some rely on the jua kali sector, bodaboda, small businesses and small scale farming. For others, especially those in towns, the situation is bad and they are completely jobless. This has forced some of them to turn to robbery, prostitution or even drug dealing.
Many political aspirants, especially those vying for the presidency and gubernatorial seats, have promised to solve the unemployment problem. But immediately they get to power, they normally forget about the youth and focus on other things. It's time the youth thought of helping themselves. We the youth have a large pool of votes and we must all vote on August 9. .
Philip Owade, Homabay
