 Good morning to you. You are watching Y254 and it is Y in the morning and as you know on Mondays it's about time we talk about governance in this country. It is youth and politics. My name is Hilda Wadivi and today in studio I have really amazing people, young people leaders in their own field and we are going to be talking about African democracies with regards to the Kenyan chapter. So we are going to touch on three specific areas which is military interference when it comes to elections, the cost of elections, the tensions that happens during elections and also the role of political parties as vessels for democracy. So yes before we delve into the conversation I'd like all of them to introduce themselves so that we can start this. As Santé Nisan, I've seen Anita here. It's good to see you again. Yes, yes, yes. So please can we start with our panelists first. Sure. My name is Diego Gracias Marguero. I am a practitioner in strategy and business development. Very passionate about youth development, youth economic and political inclusion. So I met young people and I'm also keen to disseminate the democracies in Kenyan Africa at large. Well, good morning. My name is Michelle Valentine Allodge with legal background, currently working at a youth-serving organization known as the Africa Youth Trust. Good morning everyone. My name is Elseba Kokeo. I'm well known as Sebi Cox. I had to mention that. I am a youth enthusiast and a Kenyan chapter member. Great. Good morning. My name is Maina Karobia. I'm a man of many hearts. I'm the Executive Director of the Center for African Relations and Development. I'm also the Chairman of Youths for Ruto 2022. I'm also the founding president of Youth Initiative. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Steve Maronda, also known as MC Marrocks. I'm a youth empowerment enthusiast and I'm also CEO of Mitch Empire Kenya. Thank you. Yes, good morning. I'm Justin Yamono. I'm a political scientist as well as an executive director for youth leadership and development in Africa as well as the founding president of the Youth Agenda Kenya. Good morning. I'm Omondi Franklin, a political science student, a student leader at Catholic University. Great. Great to you. I'm Kuben Chamin, Dima Kirui from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa and I'm the President of the Northwest Rift Student Association. I'm proud and recently appointed the Political Affairs Consultant Youth Appeal Kenya. Great. Good morning, everyone. My name is Matoke Patrick Osebe from the One County, Yemira, the Youth Governor Yemira County, the CEO, Compassionator in Montreal, Kenya. That's all. All right. Thank you guys so much for coming to the studio today. I can see Kilomtu is ready for this year. Yes, so let's talk about military interference. We've seen a lot of issues when it comes to elections in African countries. This happens in Malawi. It happened in Malawi. It happened in Sudan. It happened in Zimbabwe. So we'd like to understand when it, it also happened here, by the way, yes, at some point I think it was the year 1992. It also happened here. When it comes to the military, when it comes to interference, does it mean that our electoral bodies are really independent if we are fearing military interference? Well, in my understanding, I would say the fact that there is interference may not necessarily mean that we are independent in terms of our electoral bodies. However, when you talk about interference, it could also be in a number of aspects. It could be either providing security for the process or interfering with the process. Kesin, for example in Uganda, recently we felt like the military and the police was used to interfere with the process as opposed to provide security for the process. So I feel like it's per context and case by case, depending on what is the role of military and the police state in the specific process. Yeah, I wouldn't really say that military, I wouldn't call it military interference but maybe military participation. Also just like my colleague has said, it depends on the country that you're talking about and what they're addressing at that time. If you look at Kenya, for instance, I wouldn't say it's military interference but majorly it's for security purposes. So you can't say it's military interference to that extent. Okay. According to me, but... Wait, wait, wait. Sorry, I forgot. According to me, military has no business interfering with an election because there are various police angles and there is a police wing that should interfere with, should be involved in elections providing security only. But military is mostly for external aggression. So a military is involved and this is a very big issue for me because when you look at the history of Nigeria and the military struggles and coup d'etats, it comes as a result of this also Ghana with JJ Rowlings and the likes. It's very fundamental that military stays out of politics and why it's a big issue in Uganda is because you know that in Uganda, military are even represented in parliament, which means that as Bobby Wayne is speaking, next week he's like, what did you say a military member of parliament is represented? And that cannot happen. So for me, military is unknown. No, let them deal with external aggression as for internal aggression, we have various arms of the police that can provide security. Military is unknown. So can we say that the electoral bodies are not really independent if the military is involved? They are, but I think this is a arm of the, belongs to the arm of the executive and the Ministry of Interior. So it's a separate thing altogether. IBC mandate is strictly on election and they can provide their own security because anyway they have an overblotted budget that the auditor is complaining about. They still don't account for money. They still do wrong procurements. Yes. Okay. I want to be the devil's advocate and say that sometimes the reason as to why, as my sister might say, the reason as to why we have military participation in elections is that some of these elections are being influenced by foreign nations. And that's when you find states, African states, they try and opt for military participation so that maybe they can consolidate or they can bring up, they can protect their sovereignty. Case in point, when you see the Kenyan participation of the military in 1982, it was more of, the 1982 question was more of US interference with Kenyan political system. And that's why we had military participating in the elections. When you go to the bamboo case, the reason as to why you find military so much active is because the Western powers, they are so much interested with politics of the bamboo and the same case is happening in Uganda. So I might say that sometimes the reason as to why we find military participating in African elections is because they want to protect their sovereignty as independent states. And as much as we might be so much against military participation in our elections, we must also ask ourselves, will we put away the military participation at the altar of sovereignty of our African states? Because I also think Just to echo into what he's saying, I think I wouldn't want to deter military completely from our elections because of the military bulge into elections is actually to promote the sovereignty populace. I mean, we want to, the international community has rated our well-being in terms of elections. Therefore, the moment we put our military out, it means we are only dependent on them. Therefore, the military is there to provide security if it's not interfering with the elections. Alright, I think we should move away from the military now for just a minute so that we can hear everything. We should not forget that most African states are democracies. Out of the 55 recognized states, if the African charter on elections, democracy and governance is anything to go by, most African states are democracies. Also, let's not forget that Kenya is a democratic state and the general elections is a big thing. So we cannot say that we cannot involve the military in our general elections because also not only do we need the military to protect us from foreign interferences and all that, but you see if we have the military in our general elections, because we also normally have international observers to come and observe the elections, not just in the country but generally in all states. So we cannot say that it is just a police force thing. The military has to be involved. Yes, and it's okay but I'll cite, I'll close by citing Korea. He writes bottom billion and he explains why there is conflict in Africa and he talks about the military regime. You have to keep military at a certain point. It's the reason why even the auditor general cannot audit the military. You have the government has to keep military happy. That's the fact. There is a relationship between the government and the military. Military cannot smell anything to do with elections in Kenya. If you think it's a joke, look at all the history of dictatorship in Nigeria, Saniya, Bacha and the likes. These guys were not jokes. By 28 Liberia had Charles Taylor and the likes and these guys were from the military. Military should for me it's a very serious case because I've been studying interference of military in the election and how it starts. So how do you limit to what extent? And then let's not forget case in point Zimbabwe with Munagangwa. We saw loss of lives. Give and take. Whenever military is involved, there's rape cases. There's loss of lives. There are women like there's no economic development at a certain point even as before there was the handshake and there was stagnation of businesses. I mean how do you limit, how do you not cross the line? I'm glad you talked about businesses because our next point is the cost of elections which is also like the rest will also be able to comment on. So when it comes to the cost of election in Kenya we are the second highest spending when it comes to elections. Afghanistan is the first one. But for Afghanistan their cases are a bit different because their soil is very fragile and they have a lot of conflict and the people who are vying for those seeds need very serious protection. So that's why it costs them that much. But for us here in Kenya the story is a bit different. What can we do to mitigate the cost of elections? What can we do about this? That's a very good question. Can I just sum it up? To some extent I agree with you on the military aspect. There are guidelines and frameworks that all of us have to like consider and we need to talk about for instance the African Charter of the Special Elections and Governance. It's actually providing kind of a regional framework and guideline because some nations have not taken any interest in that to actually see how they can not just like sign but ratify and actually abide by that. But coming back to the cost of elections the case in point of Kenya as I usually see after every four to five years the IEBT or whatever commission is in power then pressurizes itself and the country and every stakeholder in the political process to start the civic education which in my opinion should be a continuous process. If it would be a continuous process they would engage for example the Kenyan chapter on arctic youth agenda is here among other players they see a source so that then you know the civic education on elections and the governance process once it is continuous it will be cheaper as opposed to hiring people every six months to election to rush around this. So I feel like that is one key aspect that the IEBC needs to consider. That's a solution. Yes. Great. All right. Yeah yeah maybe just to add on to what he said you know Michelle can we just wait for a one minute please. Can we hear from Kevin? Well I would like to say that the problem we have not only in Kenya but Africa is that we are very good in coming up with the laws but the problem is implementation part of the problem because if we say about election and the money that we use we have we have these laws being kept in the elections sector that limits the certain amount of money that should be spent. But what we see is that we as Kenyans our problem is we are greedy for money even as the voters even us as the voters we want to be given something so that we can vote for a certain person a certain person who is who may be very good in leadership may not be voted for because he or she lacks money and for instance the challenge usually affects us as youth because for instance where do I get 30 million to campaign to be an MP right now I don't I am not employed my business is not booming the government is not supporting my business why do I get such money and I want to actually lead the people and present my views let's say for instance in parliament so I think we need as my brother said we need a thorough civic education not only when it's near the election period even before and as in a continuous process whereby you try and educate the youth not only the youth and but the people at large that you should not vote for maybe money certain things that we should do wasn't there an act recently that was passed when it comes to campaign dealing with the issue of how much you can spend because but what I'm saying our problem is the implementation because the same people who are coming up with these laws are the same people going with more money on the ground because they want to retain that seat for their future and great democracy oh okay okay now the governor's okay youth agenda oh good yes let's hear yes democracy is expensive but uh at the same time we must be reasonable in my own opinion elections in Kenya is is very expensive yes but uh I think we should sit down as a country and come up with various resolutions number one elections are a motive so it needs to be conducted in a manner that each and every person will feel satisfied at the end of the day and uh in the elections we have various partners on board like the electoral body the political parties the various non-governmental organization NGOs they need to come together so that they they can have one agenda to to facilitate the process of elections but what we are seeing is duplication roles like uh IBC is doing this the same the political parties are doing that and also in relation to that is the IBC commissioners we have been IBC commissioners in office who are full-time in in the five years period so what we need to have is our pattern commissioners who will be working for IBC because we are having a secretariat on board whose main mandate is to implement various policies at the end of the day wow thank you for that all right yeah it's okay go ahead okay uh it's a fact that elections uh in Kenya are expensive but if I would ask why would we want to copy the so-called first-class countries to use the kind of gadgets that they use today to run our elections yet we are not even kind of experienced to use some of them you see these are some of the things that make us spend much in the elections because we want to educate everyone apart from the voter education that is only done when the elections are are almost approaching see because I feel that if all these can be implemented and done at different occasions like during maybe in the schools or something all this cash that we spend for the voter education getting the personnel getting the equipments and also if we check on the on the statistics about the the military also the amount of cash that is dispatched to them to bring about the peace and everything during the election is so high okay yes I also wish to give my submissions first and foremost we are a focused and airbase group and country that is but when it comes to political positions we forget we tend to forget what is expected of us in addition to what Mr. President here said about duplication of roles I also wish to add on that by saying that the issue of referenda currently like the case of the last referenda that we had it cost it did cost around 12 billion I think 12 billion and when you look at our last election elections we used around 49 billion so when you try to figure out the amount of money that we are using like for the case of the 49 billion which translates to 25.4 come on make it quick yeah yeah million 25.4 us dollars for every individual so I'm just trying to put out clearly is that we should try and do away with the referenda and in addition to the duplication of roles okay even the referendum now has come up good but please I want you to comment on this cost of elections the last one then the rest will comment on other things no no no no comment comment the last one is not talked but I want to say that elections are very expensive and we are the problem how one we want to wire power people from other countries so that we can use and vote why don't we produce them in Kenya so that I'm I want to be specific Kenya so that we can know what the cost of production the cost of transportation the cost of all that and other thing the budget is exaggerated the reason why is it is exaggerated it is because there are some people who want to loot through the process now they link with the the the IPC and the people who are involved so that they can loot through that process that is why we find that the cost is very high they don't want to be transparent they don't want to be accountable for it that's why even in the general elections they were not able to open the servers because they knew whatever that they have done it is not logic it's not realistic yeah that is the me of Kenya all right please please let me hear from me if you want to talk about it just go ahead yes um as a driver of african chat on democracy election and governance i would like to say this about uh elections i think if we this is where they need to sign ratify and domesticate this token it comes in because it if we abide by the 2010 promulgated constitution i think the the whatever is talking about corruption the personal interest will go down the problem is we come up with unconstitutional rules of how to work out our ways to the office without thinking of other people that's why the cost of elections comes or heightens to that level if we are in if we have the integrity enough or abide by the constitution or by the african chat then i think we are on the right process hey african chatter hey let me just to clarify you all right please go ahead you keep hearing us talk about the african chatter on democracy elections and good governance well this is basically a document by a member states which kenya signed in 2008 but has not ratified it but it basically talks about uh the the ethics of good governance human rights rule of law and electoral processes and good practices we we as members of the act the kenya chapter feel like it is high time the government took up this discussion because what is the purpose of us having signed the document but we've not ratified it because if we ratify the document we'll be bound by the provisions in the in the charter in the treaty so that means uh on matters regarding accountability we will be able to hold the government accountable because if we have an active citizenry then that means we can tell the government we know that this is supposed to happen but this is not happening what are you doing with regard to that and then also that is why we are looking at it from the youth perspective because as a youth in kenya we are all aware that we have the numbers we have a very big population of uh kenyan voters or people who actually have a say between 18 to 35 years of age so what are we doing with it let's not make elections and electoral processes only about the general elections then after that there is nothing else to say we need to know people need to know the youth need to know that it is their right to actually hold the people accountable and there are actually legislation for them to follow through for them to know that you can actually hold the government accountable if they do not deliver all right great great i hope you guys have had about this document great great okay i think it's because of me here in the fine i cannot see Kevin is lucky okay uh i'd like to talk a little about this thing in this way uh first of all uh we africans who can't say kenya for what matter we are not logical uh we lack logic we are very wrong in doing some things like budgeting because i learned to budget i know that uh i mean these things being used uh the amount of money being used here is let's say 10 000 for instance but i want to make it 20 000 because i know that these other 10 000 will remain in the pocket that's corruption our corrupt nature that is making us be in that situation and then talking about logic is a matter of why should we okay i'll record the statement by matoki there the issue on us manufacturing our own materials for elections solution and in that in that case uh this will be also creating jobs so we'll be like uh beating uh to add wood to back to that stone you see so as much as we are working on elections because this is a thing that comes in after every five years maybe by elections in the front and so but we can have a factory here doing such materials and at the same time it's a offering jobs a problem that we are facing as youths we're facing as a country so in short we should like be logic we should at least term are these are being having last of my mission at least we need to we need to have more integrity now ideally okay having integrity all right so as much as we're working on the social nature of ourselves so i understand everyone has a religion or a god or something so i'm sure that supernatural being is us teachings that you should at least take care of the other person so we should be our neighbors keeper okay all right now that's not that someone brought up democracy yeah i just had democracy here when it comes to democracies especially in kenya this was driven by political parties indio so we have an issue in kenya political parties are formed only with the purpose of elections then after that they fall apart can i hear from you what you guys think about this i think you look like you really want to say something i just have a lot of comments on what he said but i'll go past that we shall have coffee over that in kenya it's obvious here political parties have vehicles of ascending into power i can cite a few examples uh reviving of tna now i don't know it's called kazi nap between the national alliance on what with the theme of kazi napesa with money as its symbol we have the fracturing we have reviving of a democratic party we have many np and we have all these parties but one most important thing i'd like i'd like to say is we should look at and she echoed it just before elections the period before elections what happens because it happens every time yes even come to 2002 if you remember formation of knack everybody fragmented their party yes i came together immediately when reyla sold like this thing is not working he broke off from his own party odm calonzo odm kenya and the second continues and the second continues so i think we need because we're also talking about africa we need to look at other african democracies we need to look at even young parties like eff by malema he broke off form from a and c a very strong party that has grown and everybody comes from a and c then now they form their own fractures we need to look at zanu pf from zima we we have nelson chamisa he also broke off and he has his own strong solid thing so we need to have parties that have structures parties that are there to the act however still in parties i don't understand why the the woman in charge of political parties is still in acting for capacity after all these years how is she supposed to look at this 66 or 67 parties that are being formed when she's in acting capacity so we need to strengthen the political parties act and we need to to reinstate to to to remove to drop the acting and let her do what she's been doing anyway for all these years i'm very happy with what anita brings and this is a comparison and you know sharing of best practices across nations and i'm happy that you're actually using african nations to be specific and that is actually a platform that you know african chattano democracy and elections and governance is providing because the 55 states in one way or another actually agreed on this not every set has pushed for the ratification yes but where we are is a good time to have conversations and the architect actually pushes for a youth participation one of the key aspects we want to achieve using this platform is where as young people and as you know existing democracies at different levels in africa how can we share the best practices what can we learn from south africa for example from you know right now 44 seats from the emmer where we headed you know uh he didn't probably be a president not yet what can we learn from yuganda recently when we were having the east african chapter so it is an east african chapter kenya yuganda in tanzania uh and we had a convention in yuganda the yugandan youth were actually able to petition and push publicly for the speaker to consider emotion to reduce the cost of you know elections for the young people and cut it down and i think that is the kind of voice we need using this platform so calling upon everyone to actually come together with the key lessons regardless of our different you know organizations and factions architect provides that platform for all of us to start thinking of what can we do as youth all right i like that right now i'm hearing solutions good good yes i want to tie up this question with the previous question yes they say that the reason is why we have expensive reactions and the reason is why we have uh these issues of politics because we have politicized our economy when you have and i want to compare the elections of 2013 and the election of 2017 2017 we had 50 000 aspirants from president to mca that tells you everybody is fighting to be in a political space so that he or she can make money and that is actually a problem i want to propose this the reason is why our political parties are personal vehicles that are meant to promote people from their current status in politics to another status and i've been proposing a radical way of dealing with this that today we have political parties being funded by states so everybody is fighting to come up with a political party so that he can get funded from from the ex-checker can it is that correct no that's all right no no no listen listen no listen listen no listen political parties have been funded by state right not all not all but two but that tells you but that tells you that there are still political parties so i've been saying so that we can strengthen and we can have some political parties let political parties be be owned by members not individuals and that is by having political parties not funded because just how many members of parliament you have in parliament let them be members based and the activities of our political parties be earned by the contributions and donations made by members in the party let me just build on that well we don't have so much time okay can we please be really quick because i really want our governor over there to say something he looks like he wants to come out of his seat today not very happy why is that i can say political parties uh the problem comes in when we have in every party we have the the the main character that is the national character that's where it comes there is one you and if we strong or strong or weak but and our other members like now if if we have a political party like matotes we have the matotes as the governor and the president the governors that is where the problem comes in and the reason why i'm saying so these we require these people to one have an office two have the funds to to fund all these people and then if any of some police week you just go there because you are seeing something in the political party i'm fighting so that i get something even if i don't deliver even if i don't go for it i get that something and get out of there that's the problem that we have in the political party something that i've not heard anyone say yes well i don't agree with the how generally i don't agree with how political parties conduct themselves but needless to say we need to give credit rates do i don't know about other people's political parties but for my political parties it actually does the most to get to the youth in with regard to youth awareness creation and involvement engagement and participation and also just economic empowerment but that is besides the point what i'm trying to say is when we get opportunities to be in political parties i know many people many student leaders who start from schools then get into political parties and still they get integrated into the same system which does not run with the best interest of the youth because if you look at the secretariat of these political parties most of the people that are at the secretariat of the leadership roles of that they are not young people so as a youth who are engaging in politics we need to know that we need to have the best interest of the youth at heart because today i could be the member of parliament and tomorrow i might not be the member of parliament depending on whether i give deliverables to my constituents or not so with that in mind i need to be able to create a favorable conducive environment so that even if i'm not in a position of power still the youth are at advantage to see that this is actually working for me or not not get selfish yeah well i like her i like her i like her opinions because she really makes sure she reminds us that we need the youth she brings us back to the youth it's about time it's about time we conclude this i think we need to do a second chapter next week will you guys come next week all of you are not saying yes if it starts early yeah yeah we will continue however it's about time we conclude please thank you fine um our mind is on uh about funding of political parties only two parties qualify for funding and inside uh parties that get five percent of the votes which makes sense because i told you there's six political parties some didn't even feel one candidate which means they're not serious uh parties some parties are not complying to the political party act they don't have a national executive committee they don't have youth wing they don't have remaining all these are requirements by the political parties act yes so for me uh karubia people must political parties must be funded and there must be a certain criteria about that and this came sorry and this came as a result of our presenting external interference with our political parties okay okay okay guys wait we gotta talk can we have to stop okay i'm so sorry next week if you guys don't cannot be so pleased so no no you can't be i will be just you know what they are going to do right so yeah so it's about time we conclude this but music freak we're gonna be together yeah oh my god i'm called to action called to action yeah it's okay yes well uh my party sure one of the things as a nation only there's a africa let me talk about africa like we need to be we need to make politics not a god like a god with a small g we need maybe to make it the least or the least economic franchise that we have okay let's not make it so big for our economy yes because of our interests that's why we are political parties all right and that's slow mocus and this part is need to be funded by the government by the heist checker okay okay hey they need to be funded by the government i like that okay so what's happening next week please we are coming back okay all right i'm so sorry we gotta go okay all right so you've been watching this and politics my name is hilda what did they please do not go anywhere next week we are still back here oh my god hopefully yes god's grace thank you guys so much for coming thank you for contributing give me life you know please don't go anywhere wait to fight for a channel peace