Audio By Vocalize
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) will roll out the Enhanced Continuous Voter Registration (ECVR) exercise on Monday across the country. The exercise, which will run for 30 days, targets to register 2.5 million voters.
The Continuous Voter Registration (CVR) has been ongoing in constituency offices, and there have been pleas to extend the exercise further afield so that more people can register.
Crucially, the ECVR comes at a time when interest by young people to register as voters is at an all-time high. In the past few days, youths have been thronging the constituency offices, eager to register as voters. Some of them, however, have been unable to access the offices due to lack of money for transport, among other factors.
But with the roll out of the Phase One of ECVR on Monday at the ward level across the country, such frustration will come to an end as the service will be brought closer to every Kenyan. There will be no excuse for anyone not to register.
This moment is particularly important for the Gen Zs who have been clamouring for change in the past three years. As aforementioned, there is a renewed interest among them to register as voters, inspired by the ‘Niko Kadi’ campaign.
Unfortunately, this cohort is not registering as enthusiastically as it should, according to the IEBC whose data shows that more Millennials and other adults have registered as voters compared to Gen Zs in the recent past.
Good leadership
This should be a cause for concern for the Gen Zs who have been very vocal about bad leadership and the need to change the quality of governance.
Needless to say, the Gen Zs are right that the country is suffering from a dearth of good leadership at almost all levels, and this is reflected in the poor quality of services in all sectors.
The young people have been hailed as the generation that will help chart a new course for Kenya; one where tribalism, nepotism and corruption, among other evils that are to blame for Kenya’s stagnation.
But Gen Zs must be reminded that the fight for a better Kenya will not be won on the streets and on social media. A better Kenya will only be born through the ballot in August 2027.
Through their votes, Kenyans will be able to remind their political leaders that power is borrowed, not owned. This is precisely why the youth of this country must treat the IEBC’s registration window as the urgent civic duty that it is.
Gen Zs must avoid the peculiar habit of people who have spend five years cataloguing the failures of his leaders, yet when the moment arrives to do something about it, they suddenly discover they have better things to do than register as voters. That is akin to complaining bitterly about a leaking roof but refusing to climb up to fix it. The house will continue leaking however loudly you protest.
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