Gen Z hit reboot and reset to politics without politicians

A youth during Gen Z anniversary protest on Kisii-Migori highway, on June 25, 2025. [Sammy Omingo, Standard] 

In deciphering the disconnect between rulers and ruled, was June 25 our latest “Zero O’clock” moment?  Remember, our leaders loves the sound of their own voices, while playing tone-deaf but trigger-happy when the people speak in ways they don’t like. 

Remember the popular view before the protests that our leaders had a year to change things, to reset and reboot, but hadn’t. 

Today, July 1, is 1022 days (57 per cent) into this “telenovela” administration, so we have a melodramatic 770 days (43 per cent) of “spray and pray” politics till Election 2027. 

That’s if we survive the ongoing court case that would make 18 August 2026, 414 days from today, the next presidential election date. But, to get back on point, today is also just five days since our first June 25th remembrance day, and exactly one week to our 35th “Saba Saba” (7/7) anniversary. 

July 7, 1990 was the day Kenyans stormed the streets in pro-democracy protests.  This presaged multi-partyism and eventually, the 2010 constitution that cemented our second liberation (1963 independence was the first). Every regime since 2010 promises a third, economic, liberation. 

Next Monday should be interesting given fresh government threats to ban legitimate protests that tend to be peaceful early on, then degenerate into a vicious goon infestation of pillage and plunder into the dead of night. You don’t need to be telepathic to connect the PPP dots when the state leases out its monopoly of violence while armed police shoot innocent unarmed civilians. 

You also don’t need a crystal meth-ball to see 20 county protests in 2023, 19 county protests on June 25, 2024 and 27 county protests this June 25 adding up to a 35-40 county groundswell of 2027 anger across our 47 counties if you mapped the changing locus of these protests over time. Closed TV stations don’t matter; if there’s a revolution coming, it will be streamed, not beamed. 

Of course, government’s forked tongues – quick to blame the church and diplomatic partners – still can’t decide if they should gaslight us by claiming June 25 was a terrorist plot or coup attempt or both at the same time.

The harsh truth is up to 20 people died this June 25th protesting the death of over 60 people who protested last June 25th. Last time we checked, it’s police shooting, not people shouting, that causes death. And now we have a freshly-minted “shoot to kill” order! 

We were also told June 25 was sponsored and tribal. Yet the protests covered 57 per cent of our counties (ironically, 57 per cent into this regime’s term).  The real threat to our political elite is generational.  Gen Z (44 per cent) and Millennials (31 per cent) could be 75 per cent of the 2027 voter roll if IEBC hits its targeted 85 per cent registration of 32 million age-eligible voters. 

But it’s more than this.  Essentially, despite all of the unity talk frothing from the lips of this broad-based government, their counter-punch to these Gen Z-led protests is a reboot to tribalism; the reliance in 2027 on ethnic consensus as the anvil on which to forge the election as ethnic census. 

Getting back to Gen Z and “Zero O’clock”, what unusual angles might we reflect upon from June 25?  It may sound obvious, but the first is politics, and the second, relatedly, is government. 

To begin, the idea of leaderless and tribeless Gen Z might lead us to the more radical idea of “politics without politicians”, which, to the naked eye, sounds as foolishly improbable as it is practically impossible. From a narrow view, this is the “must go” indictment of our current politicians all the way from the presidency to MCAs. 

In a more nuanced lens, this speaks to the notion – don’t hate the players, hate the game.  So the real fix, the real ask, is “change the game”. 

There are simpler comparisons with this “politics without politicians” idea. Take the thought of “banking without banks”.  What do we have today?  Everything from mobile money (say, M-Pesa) to fintech.  Banks didn’t disappear, they got better. 

Here’s another that’s happening in real time, “news without newspapers” first, then “news without newsrooms”.  Newspapers and newsrooms haven’t vanished, but adjusted to the role of social media (say, X) in the news cycle. 

So “politics without politicians” isn’t the end of politicians, but the beginning of new politics (Politics 3.0).  Which was one of President Ruto’s three core promises when he assumed office – the institutionalisation and depersonalisation of political and governance practices. Of course, a new politics must be centred on the twin visions of a new society and a new economy. 

Which brings us to the second angle - government.  A few days before June 25, the third National Executive Retreat for the Cabinet and senior members of the national executive was quietly held.  

Couched as a mid-term review of government performance since September 2022, while charting the course forward, this closed retreat elicited media attention from two addresses by President Ruto, who called for a focus on the transformation agenda, not 2027, and Raila Odinga who suggested we missed an aviation leadership opportunity with the ill-fated Adani JKIA deal.  

But it’s the 9-page dispatch which followed the retreat that was most interesting.  Not so much for its statement of achievements we hear in speeches which ignore the 305 outcome and 1,522 output indicators they set up to be tracked across a five-year timeline (that is, 1,525 outcome and 7,610 output targets).

Not so much that this was a “whole of executive” not “whole of government” (including other arms of government, plus counties) or “whole of society” (multi-stakeholder – including private sector, civil society, fourth sector and general public) retreat. 

Not even its 21 point action plan of which only the first action point to reimagine the agenda and find new pathways for stimulating economic growth and job creation made any holistic sense.  

No, most telling was the 10 challenges identified as impeding delivery of the agenda - the unseen potholes and unmarked speed bumps on the transformation journey still seeking a destination.  The first two challenges – a volatile global environment and fiscal/financial risks (budget shortfalls) are clear – economic resilience and fiscal sustainability are core to the transformation agenda (as is fundamental restructuring of the economy).  The other eight challenges are far less convincing. 

Weak monitoring and evaluation systems rubbish the credibility of their performance data.  Weak horizontal and vertical collaborative governance and a silo approach to implementation confirm “whole of government” is a myth.

Indiscipline in project and program execution means our development agenda is a lottery.  Litigation, legal and bureaucratic bottlenecks suggest an attitude where genuine challenges in court, on policy or law, are viewed in the same light as official sloth.  

Technology disruptions and cyber-(in)security are challenges of unpreparedness.  But it’s the last two challenges - “misinformation, disinformation and the battle of narratives” on one hand, and “weaponisation of legitimate concerns into violent agitation” on the other, that confirm we are implementing Transformation 3.0 (economic liberation) using Government 1.0. 

This isn’t a hardware or software issue, it is a faulty operating system of government mindsets and attitudes.

Is June 25 the reboot and reset “Zero O’clock” moment for Government 3.0 from Politics 3.0?