Ademba Allans is making it “cool” to vote in Kenya.
The student journalist turned civic mobiliser launched a voter registration drive on social media earlier this year, using snappy selfies infused with music and humour to target young people.
The result astonished him and many observers of Kenyan politics – by the time the registration period ended, 2.6 million new voters across the country had signed up. He is aiming to get another 2.3 million on board in the next round.
“It was the Gen Z way of doing politics,” he tells me. “Fun, trendy, sexy, fashionable. Because of how we created the hype around it, people had the fear of missing out. Everybody wanted to be involved.”
Gen Z, the term used to describe people born in the late 1990s and early 2000s, burst onto the scene two years ago with mass protests that forced the government to retreat on a widely unpopular tax bill. But their victory was followed by a police crackdown that killed and injured dozens of demonstrators.
Now many young Kenyans are planning to move from the street to the ballot box, angry with a political establishment they accuse of corruption and police brutality.
And they have the numbers to make a difference – more than 30% of voting-age Kenyans are younger than 35.
Polls suggest President William Ruto is looking vulnerable.
But can Gen Z convert a decentralized digital-led rebellion into organised political power?
“These youth-led movements are a wild card, in that they are unpredictable,” says political analyst Tom Mboya.
“They don’t require much in the way of resources and can pop up at any time. The finance bill protests were political in nature, but the movement has not been tested at an overtly political level. So if they decide to support a candidate, then he’s likely to do fairly well.”
One of the strengths of the digitally savvy Gen Z activists is that they have been able to mobilise outside the party structures and ethnic allegiances that anchor Kenyan politics.
Allans has been careful not to advocate a particular candidate or party – emphasising leadership rather than politicians, marshalling a new force, he says, outside traditional tribal voting blocs.
“There has never been a case where there is a bloc that is not affiliated to any person or any party. They just want to vote in the right leaders, and this is what we created,” he says.
“It’s more of a swing vote because you cannot tell who we are going to vote for.”
Ruto and his United Democratic Alliance (UDA) are facing strong head winds with less than a year to go before the August 2027 vote.
More than three-quarters of respondents to a survey conducted in June felt the country was moving in the wrong direction, with two-thirds saying their personal economic situation had worsened since Ruto was elected in 2022.
But analysts argue that the president does not necessarily have to be popular to win. He is a master political organiser with the resources of the state, they say.
Ruto’s political rivals are also fragmented, and it is not yet clear whether they can form a united opposition to take him on.
One man who has captured the attention of many Gen Zs is Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna. He has emerged as the leader of a movement called Linda Mwananchi (Protect the Citizen), which is getting strong support from disaffected young people.
Sifuna first caught their attention when he tried to stop police from shooting at protesters who were storming parliament during the 2024 demonstrations.
Now he is championing a “people-led” movement that promotes the protection of human rights and rule of law as enshrined in the constitution.
He has yet to officially declare a run for the presidency, but is already on the road rallying support. The BBC caught up with him on a recent trip to Meru county in central Kenya, a region that voted strongly for Ruto in the last election.
“Young people want us to create an environment where everybody feels that they can compete fairly,” he told me before starting out on his raucous road show.
“We need to absolutely dismantle the system so that everybody has a fair chance at life, a fair chance at education, a fair chance at employment, and the opportunities to grow themselves.
“This election in 2027 is when this theory that the young people are advancing will be put to the test,” he said. “Our challenge as a leadership is to ensure you have a compelling message that then encourages people to come out, let them see the vision for the new country.”
Ruto also had a compelling vision for the country when he came to power in 2022.
He promised to transform the economy from the bottom up, with a focus on lifting the marginalised. His government has since introduced changes including landmark reforms that widen access to public healthcare, but many young people felt betrayed by his austerity measures and tax hikes.
“I’m here to participate in a revolution change that we want a new Kenyan youth leader who knows the common problems that are facing the young people,” 23-year-old Brandon Muremi told the BBC.
I found him in a relatively quiet corner of the final stop in a hectic day of a “rolling rally” – Sifuna’s convoy visited four locations, sometimes blocking traffic as he and local politicians climbed on top of their vehicles and delivered rousing speeches at ear-splitting volumes.
“We are looking for a leader who sticks to his plans, not just talking the promises that he makes,” agreed Conrad Mutangili, a 19-year-old mechanical engineering student who had come out of curiosity.
“We are looking for somebody who can actually accomplish and actually bring to the people what they are talking about,” he said. “Because they promise sweets, but we don’t feel any sugar in our mouths.”
“We want immediate results,” said a 22-year-old computer science student, Yvonne Kileme, acknowledging that the results of government projects may be more long-term. “And one thing that we want as youths is employment, employment, employment, employment.”
Ruto argues strongly that his government is delivering jobs, and says the high rate of youth unemployment is a problem that predates his presidency.
He has reached out to Gen Z with various programmes that offer grants and loans to small business and youth-led enterprises, technology hubs and digital work opportunities.
The national youth leader of Ruto’s UDA, Kariuki Ngunjiri, told the BBC he was confident of winning the election with an overwhelming majority.
“The president is a listening president and he’s been able to now come down to the youth, get what their concerns are, give them jobs, and that has absolutely, even for the party, given us a head start,” he said.
“We are not worried about the social media buzz because we are people who actually engage the young people on real, actual, tangible development. What you see mostly on sponsored hashtags and sponsored headlines does not really concern us.”
He was speaking as a senior sports official promised to expand the stadium-building programme with another venue, at a packed UDA town hall meeting in Kangema, about 100km (60 miles) north of the capital, Nairobi.
Like so many others, 23-year-old Shintah Mutahi was job hunting.
“I came to listen to what they were saying,” she said, “maybe find an opportunity for a job. I think they can give me a chance, they should just be given some time to do that.”
John Kiragu, a local UDA youth leader, said he understood the grievances that had driven young people to protest.
“There have been challenges,” he said, “but now the government is really trying hard to consolidate the youth. The government is implementing programmes that will really uplift their lives.”
Kiragu told me he was involved in a programme to deal with youth alcoholism – a real problem in this region. Many of the young men who attended the morning town hall meeting were already drunk on a cheap local liquor.
The captain of the local football team, Calvin Ware, also turned up to hear the stadium announcement. He said he had heard similar promises many times before, especially before elections, and this one was not going to influence his vote.
“We have already made our mind,” he said. “The whole government should go home. We want to build a new Kenya, new youth, new people, fresh people from all over the country, and we are not basing on tribal [allegiances] or anything else. We just want a change, a change, and a change. Nothing else.”
As we were speaking, we heard a loud cheer – the event had ended and people were lining up to receive cash handouts – 350 Kenyan shillings, about $3 (£2.20).
It is common practice to pay people to attend political meetings in Kenya, and politicians can use much larger sums to try and influence votes.
“More so than many other parts of the world, money talks in an election here,” says political analyst Mboya. “The cost of politics is significantly higher than in other parts of the world.”
Less than a year to Kenya’s election, it does feel like politics might be changing, that the race could be shaped by youth disillusionment with the political establishment. But while the Gen Z movement has rejected the “old politics” based on ethnic group and money, those have been the building blocks that win elections in Kenya.
Nobody yet knows what the energy of Gen Z voters will mean at the ballot box.
By BBC News
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