According to a mini-budget tabled by the Treasury in Parliament on February 2, the IEBC will receive an additional Sh8.81 billion towards preparations for the August 9, General Election. This included the mass voter registration.
But those targeted in the exercise are not enthusiastic. While some of them claim they are tired of recycled politicians, others believe the election is already rigged and have resigned to the defeatist attitude that their votes would be inconsequential.
According to the electoral commission, there were 1,519,294 new voters in the first round of the mass registration between October 4 and November 2, 2021. This, against a target of 6,000,000 eligible first-time youthful voters. In the second phase, 1,031, 645 first-time voters enlisted against a target of 4.5 million.
What is more disturbing is that majority of youth making these claims are not ordinary folk whiling away at a rural shopping centre. These are students in tertiary institutions who should display a higher sense of appreciation of the importance of registering and turning up to vote.
Universal suffrage is the right of all adult citizens to participate in elections, including the right to register and to vote.
What those not keen to register may not know is that there was a time in most societies – the US, the UK, and even Kenya when not everybody had the right to vote. It is, therefore, easy to take it for granted that it is a right they can opt not to exercise for the reasons cited.
But this reluctance reflects a narrow sense of civic duty and feeble grasp of democratic practice.
Those claiming they will not vote because the same leaders win over and over again do not seem to know it is only when they register and vote that they can rid themselves and the society of recycled leaders. They should also know it is not necessarily undemocratic for a leader to win over and over again as long as the elections are free and fair.
In the US, for example, Joe Biden served as senator for Delaware for 36 years and 13 days from 1973 till January 15, 2009 when he stepped down after being tapped by Barack Obama to be his running mate and later Vice President for two terms.
Democrats have had some of the longest-serving lawmakers. In November 2021, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the longest-serving senator, announced he would not seek re-election in 2022 to the seat he has held for eight terms.
In 1959, Robert Carlyle Byrd served as senator for West Virginia from 1959 to June 28, 2010. That comes to some odd 51 years, five months and 26 days. The point here is that in elective positions that have no term limits, it is upon the electorate to vote in or vote out leaders based on their performance.
Other Democrats in the list of long-serving senators in the US include Daniel Ken Inouye (Hawaii) who served for 49 years, 11 months and 15 days; Senator James Strom Thurmond (South Carolina) who served for 47 years, five months and seven days; and Edward Moore Kennedy (Massachusetts) who served for 46 years, nine months and 19 days.
The only Republican who’s served nearly as long is Orrin Grant Hatch (Utah State) who served for 42 years between 1977 and 2019. So, the youth citing recycling of leaders as a reason for not enlisting as voters should look for another excuse to explain their narrow sense of civic duty.
Kenya has one of the highest turnover of leaders in the world, contrary to what some youth would want the public to believe. In 2017, a whopping 166 members of the National Assembly lost their seats. In Kiambu county, for example, only one out of 59 MCAs elected in 2013 were re-elected in 2017. The same happened in Makueni county.
All said and done, the youth are not entirely to blame for their massive ignorance of electoral processes. They have been let down by the IEBC that only grumbles about funding for capital-intensive and tender-laden expenditures such as ballot papers and not for civic and voter education that should precede registration drives.
For citizens to promote the realisation of the principles of the electoral system as envisaged in Article 81 of the Constitution, civic and voter education are vital. The primary duty bearer in this regard is the IEBC. It is not enough to launch the drive and leave the youth to their own devices to figure out why they should register in the first place.
Partnership with civil society, religious institutions, and communities of interest like political parties and the media, and indigenous community organizations provide the best approach to reaching out to the youth with messaging that empowers them to develop democratic ownership and individual responsibility for decisions and actions they take.
Suba Churchill is a human rights and social justice activist, and commentator on topical issues
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