MOMBASA, Kenya—The Human Rights Agenda (HURIA) has opened a platform for Coast youth to engage directly with key electoral and governance institutions, saying young people must no longer be left on the margins of Kenya’s electoral processes as the country heads towards the 2027 General Election.
More than 80 university and college students drawn from the six Coast counties participated in a consultative forum in Mombasa that brought together the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) and Office of the Registrar of Political Parties (ORPP).
The forum, organised under HURIA’s RESTORE programme, was designed to give young people an opportunity to understand the electoral process, raise issues affecting them and directly engage institutions responsible for different aspects of elections, peace and political participation.
HURIA Executive Director Yusuf Lule Mwatsefu said the initiative was informed by the need to change the way young people are engaged in electoral affairs.
He said youth should not only be brought into the electoral process when they are needed to vote, but should be involved from the planning stages through to implementation and execution.
According to Mwatsefu, meaningful youth participation requires young people to understand how electoral processes work, contribute their ideas and have their voices considered when decisions affecting the electoral environment are being made.
The HURIA official said creating direct platforms between young people and institutions such as IEBC, NCIC and ORPP was part of efforts to ensure that the youth are informed and actively participate in the democratic process rather than remaining passive observers.
The timing of the engagement comes as Kenya moves into the electoral period ahead of the 2027 General Election, with political activity expected to intensify in the coming months.
Mwatsefu warned that political goonism, hate speech and misinformation could pose a threat to peaceful participation if they are allowed to take root as the election approaches.
“The problem of this country is not laws; it is enforcement, and we cannot allow ourselves to go into the Haiti path,” he said.
Representing the NCIC, Deputy Director of Legal Services Kyalo Mwengi said the commission had intensified efforts to tackle hate speech through a newly established multi-agency team.
“It is not business as usual, and we are not going to condone hate speech,” Mwengi said, warning political aspirants and other actors against incitement and misinformation.
HURIA Senior Programmes Officer Antony Maganga said the RESTORE programme was also focused on strengthening the ability of young people to resist recruitment into groups that could fuel conflict during the electoral season.
He urged youth to exercise caution over information they consume and share, particularly on social media, where misinformation and disinformation can spread rapidly.
“We have to be careful with the information that we share and the information that we consume, especially during this period of election,” Maganga said.
The youth participants said the engagement provided an important opportunity to interact directly with institutions involved in the electoral process.
Precious Ombele, a law student at the University of Nairobi’s Mombasa campus, said young people should be recognised as rights holders in the present rather than being continually described as leaders of tomorrow.
“It is time that the law meets reality so that we are not creating systems from abstract or from a vacuum,” Ombele said.
Mohammed Jailani, outgoing chair of the university’s Student Association, said young people were increasingly rejecting attempts by political actors to recruit them as instruments of political violence.
“We refuse to be used in a manner which is against the national interest and against the public interest,” Jailani said.
Mwahanje Masoud Mangale, Secretary General of the Kaloleni Student Leaders Youth Network, said unchecked political goonism could discourage young people from participating in elections.
“Goonism influences voters; it influences the electoral process,” Mangale said, warning that young people could withdraw from electoral participation if they continued to see political violence go unchecked.
The Mombasa forum therefore placed youth participation at the centre of discussions on Kenya’s preparations for the next election, bringing together young voters and the institutions expected to safeguard the integrity, peace and inclusivity of the electoral process.
For HURIA, the broader objective is to ensure that young people are not only informed about elections but are given meaningful opportunities to contribute to the process, articulate their concerns and participate from the planning stage through to implementation.
