President Uhuru Kenyatta has quite a bit of work to do to win the youths’ vote ahead of the General election.
The youths’ vote is very dicey because they are very nomadic.
Many of them have refused to register. In fact, that is one danger Deputy President William Ruto runs the risk of over relying on the youths’ vote.
They are the ones turning up in the rallies but what guarantee is there that they will turn out massively that way to vote?
Depending how Uhuru approaches it, he can turn that vote around. Uhuru has charisma and he relates to the young voters very easily.
Remember his dress code during the campaigns? How he dresses and messages relates with the young voters easily.
The guy who has a problem relating with the youths is former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
He needs to change tack. In terms of outreach on social media they are not doing much to appeal to this category of voters.
It is not about posting what you have done on Facebook. They must be able to get people who are able to message and who talk the language of the people.
These people should be the ones doing clips and messages and talk to the youths in a language they understand and have the messages out there. That has not been done.
Ruto has made serious inroads amongst the youths. He has radicalised them and given them false hope and they are buying the narrative.
The Azimio guys must come up with a counter-narrative packaged in a language that those people understand.
This is close to what Raila was doing in 2007 where the youths in Rift Valley believed that Raila’s presidency was going to give them land. Later on it turned that was not the case.
Ruto has also radicalised them so they are imagining that if Ruto gets power they are going to get wealth from the rich people, which cannot work because Ruto himself is rich.
Youths are a block you cannot ignore. Whoever manages to get them out to vote will have an edge over the other aspirants.
As of now, Ruto is leading in that age of 18–35 years BY THE STAR