Leaders dancing on Gen Z graves with an eye on 2027 and beyond

The arrogance is loud, as is the torrent of mockery directed at the demands of restless Gen Z.

President William Ruto and his allies have turned the misery of the young people into political capital to fuel his re-election campaign.

Some are actively using the plight of the Gen Z to craft their own political survival.

For some ODM leaders, the tribulations of the youth is the catapult that has speeded up their pursuit for power, as Party Leader Oburu Oginga and Chairperson Gladys Wanga build a cheering squad for next year's General Election.

The concerns that pushed the young people to the streets have been pushed to the periphery, with some of the so-called experts from ODM who joined the President’s Cabinet accused of being among the faces tightening the economic belt on suffering Kenyans.

On Thursdaay, as the families of the victims of State brutality sought to remember their loved, some amid resistance from the same security forces, President William Ruto was leading a diversionary tactic.

He chose to attack The Standard Group as his foot soldiers downplayed the second anniversary of the 2024 police shootings and abductions.

"What I have seen on the streets is commercial activists looking for funding and politicians seeking relevance," claimed Wanga in Kosewe, Homa Bay.

She is among the leaders whom observers believe have turned the Gen Z plight into a springboard for political relevance. 

Others like Cabinet Secretaries John Mbadi, Opiyo Wandayi, Hassan Joho and Wycliffe Oparanya, who joined Ruto’s administration to help calm the Gen Z 2024 storm, are building their political and economic fortunes.

Observers believe that the lack of formidable leadership and direction among the Gen Z created a vacuum that politicians exploited to build their own profiles.

Political analyst Mark Bichachi notes that power abhors a vacuum. "It was only a matter of time before politicians filled that gap," he says.
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‎"Gen Z need to understand that democracy isn’t just the ability to demonstrate but rather participation on every rank and channel of governance." 

Strategic communications consultant Barrack Muluka believes that although the issues that were raised by Gen Z are yet to be resolved, politicians are exploiting their plight.
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"That’s what they always do. Politics is about exploiting opportunities," says Dr Muluka.

Buoyed by the political realignment, and the fact that some of the young people who were part of the movement switched sides to become the government’s mouthpieces, the President and his allies are speaking with arrogance. This perhaps explains the reason Nominated Senator Karen Nyamu mocked the yesterday's anniversary, describing it as selective amnesia.

"Every young Kenyan deserves remembrance too, not just those targeting William Ruto politically" she said.

In the buildup to the anniversary, the leaders have been loud in opposing any plans for Kenyans to exercise their right to picket. The threats of violence have been loud from both ODM leaders allied to Oburu and President Ruto’s UDA foot soldiers.

Critics argue that the biggest winners from the Gen Z uprising are not the young people who risked everything for change, but the politicians.

At the weekend, the ODM team led by Oburu and Wanga rallied their supporters to reject any attempts to have protests in areas perceived to be the party's strongholds.

Early this week, the President signed into law the controversial Finance Bill, 2026 that sailed through Parliament with little opposition despite some of its provisions echoing the ghosts of the 2024 protests.

Alongside him was CS Mbadi. Under his watch, several supplementary budgets have highlighted the government’s recklessness as spending plans change and some dockets, including State House, overspend. In the current financial year, for instance, the budget for State House that was initially set at Sh8.58 billion ballooned to Sh17 billion in the supplementary budget.

In Nyanza and other areas where ODM assumes it has support, the Finance CS has intensified grassroots mobilization for Ruto’s reelection and for his own ambitions.

Both Joho and Mbadi are harbouring interests for the deputy presidency. At the Coast, Joho has been consolidating his backyard with an eye on the 2032 succession politics.

Oparanya is also using the position he got as a result of the Gen Z blood to build his own political profile and position himself as the kingpin of Western.

‎‎Within ODM, some of the young people who were part of the 2024 protests are now at the base of the party's political strategy to control the younger generations in favour of Ruto. They have been given platforms, funding and political backing to sell the President's reelection plan, support the union with UDA as well as act as the face of the younger generation in the late Raila Odinga's party.

Political risk analyst Dismas Mokua argues that political actors are known worldwide to drive their selfish interests camouflaged as national and public interests. He says successful politicians are never held hostage by history and historic facts, and take advantage of history and historic events to align and realign, calibrate and recalibrate.

"It is not surprising that a number of politicians were relegated to the political history dustbin while others have aligned with Gen Z interests and expectations. However, in the case of young people, it gave some political actors the opportunity to refocus on the 2027 and 2032 presidential elections," says Mokua.

Further, Wycliffe Onyonje, a political analyst, views the new political alliance as evidence that the ruling elite had successfully absorbed a movement that  threatened their existence.

"The political establishment realised that it could not defeat Gen Z through confrontation alone," he says.

Lawyer Ndegwa Njiru feels that the struggle for democracy and good governance is intra-generational.
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‎"Had we not fought and taken the advantage of bringing in the Constitution, then the people called Gen Z would not have any footing to stand on," he says.