Kenya’s Young Aspirants Have the Vision, the Market for Power Is Priced Against Them.

The Spark in 30 seconds

• The barriers to entry are financial, social and structural, not a lack of vision. The average 2017 campaign cost Sh3.1 million for an MCA seat and Sh18.2 million for an MP seat, and the Election Campaign Financing Act of 2013 was never fully implemented. Only the 2026 regulations now set limits for 2027, and a sitting MP already calls his seat’s cap unrealistic. Party tickets in ethnically aligned parties reward loyalty and cash over competence.
• Women and young people are screened out by people who often don’t include them. Women are only about 11% of candidates gazetted in 2022 and hold 10.6% of elective seats, and the two-thirds gender principle remains unimplemented sixteen years after 2010. Unmarried aspirants of both sexes are marked down for singleness, a signal the author calls unrelated to the job. In North Eastern Kenya, clan elders’ “negotiated democracy” often excludes women from the vetting councils.
• Youth turn out as candidates and registrants, but conversion to votes and wins is the weak link. Youth candidates rose from 3,091 in 2017 to 3,879 in 2022, yet youth voter registration fell 5.27% and only 14.3 million of 22.1 million registered voters voted. Only 314 of 3,428 youth candidates won in 2017. Many aspirants also couldn’t describe their seat’s mandate, promising bursaries, boreholes and tarmac instead.