Pleasant surprises despite low youth voter turnout

.Some of the voters who turned up at Kiritiri Primary School, Mbeere South constituency, Embu County

Some of the voters who turned up at Kiritiri Primary School, Mbeere South constituency, Embu County on August 9, 2022. Most areas experienced low voter turnout.
 

Photo credit: Charles Wanyoro | Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

  • Out of the 22.1 million registered voters, only 39.8 per cent were young people between the ages of 18-35 years.
  • In the just-concluded elections, the IEBC announced a voter turnout of 60 per cent, which could mean that young Kenyans largely opted to sit out this election.
  • The irony is, that while a majority of the attendees of the campaigns are young people when it comes to elections, most opt to stay away from voting.

Pleasant surprises despite low youth voter turnout

As the election results continue to stream in, and as the country anxiously waits for the final announcement by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), we are already seeing several noteworthy developments and pleasant surprises.

The first is the resounding victory of 24-year-old Linet Chepkorir Toto, who won the Bomet woman representative seat.

For those who do not know her, Chepkorir was the young woman who was not so long ago turned away by guards at the Deputy President’s gate, blocking her from accessing a United Democratic Alliance (UDA) Rift Valley aspirants’ meeting.

She would later win the nominations a few months later and is set to be sworn in as the youngest woman representative in the country’s recent history.

This is a great and inspiring milestone for Kenyan youth and an incontestable confirmation that you can never be too young to lead or make a difference in your community.

The other wonderful development so far is that we are seeing more women governors. In the 2017 election, we had three women governors.

In this election, we have so far confirmed at least six female governors, with some counties having women in both governorship and senatorial positions.

We are also seeing an increased number of women elected MPs –other than the woman representatives – which in my view is a step in the right direction.

Opted to sit out 

That said, we also noted a remarkably lower voter turnout compared to the 2017 elections.

Out of the 22.1 million registered voters, only 39.8 per cent were young people between the ages of 18-35 years, signalling a reluctance by Kenyan youth to get involved in the country’s politics.

It gets worse. In the just-concluded elections, the IEBC announced a voter turnout of 60 per cent, which could mean that young Kenyans largely opted to sit out this election.

The irony is, that while a majority of the attendees of the campaigns are young people when it comes to elections, most opt to stay away from voting.

Anecdotal evidence attributes voter apathy amongst Kenyan youth to disinterest and helplessness.

A lot of Kenyan youth are feeling a sense of powerlessness when it comes to elective politics because they think their voices do not matter.

The other issue could be the fact that politicians are out of touch with issues considered important by the youth, and the self-interest that mainly drives Kenyan politics.

Kenyan youth do not see themselves in some of our leaders and they are not convinced that electing any of them would particularly have any impact on their lives.

This appears to be a global phenomenon. In the United States, a survey by The New York Times and Siena College found that young voters are ‘fed up’ with their much older leaders, with only one per cent of the 18-29-year-olds approving of the way President Joe Biden is handling his job.

Could this be a classic case of intergenerational conflict? Whatever it is, this is a wake-up call to leaders to rethink their strategies for the benefit of Kenyan youth.

The writer is the director, Innovation Centre, at Aga Khan University; [email protected]