AFRICA/KENYA - Bishop of Kitui: "The hope is that new leaders will emerge from the young generation"

Nairobi (Agenzia Fides) - "The young people are taking to the streets to protest because they are disappointed by the unfulfilled promises of politicians," said the Bishop of Kitui, Joseph Maluki Mwongela, head of the lay pastoral ministry at the Kenya Episcopal Conference, in an interview with Fides.
In Kenya, thousands of people took to the streets in June to demand the withdrawal of the Finance Bill and the resignation of the government.
How did it come to this?

Before the last elections in 2022, policies were promised to improve the living conditions of Kenyans. But people could see that their conditions did not improve, but worsened. The 2023 Finance Bill meant much more taxes for citizens and was passed despite protests. And this year's Finance Bill introduced even more taxes. When the latter was debated in Parliament, the population rebelled. People, especially young people, took to the streets in peaceful demonstrations. Unfortunately, among the peaceful protesters were also provocateurs who caused violent incidents and vandalized and looted public and private property. But there is a general consensus that we want a better and better managed Kenya.
What measures do you think should be taken to avoid violence and make progress in the national dialogue?

According to the Synod on Synodality, we must listen to each other. We must avoid radicalizing the situation by listening to each other. So the government must listen to the people, just as we all must listen to the young people who are demanding a better future. This generation is much better educated than the previous one. They have gone to school, they have studied, they have acquired knowledge and work skills, but they do not have a job. So they do not have the opportunity to fulfil themselves. This is the big problem in our country. We have a large number of unemployed young people who have a lot of energy and time and who do not always use these two resources well, which even causes problems for the government itself.

After the government was overthrown and the president was forced to withdraw the finance law, the question now is: what next?
As the person responsible for youth ministry in the Bishops' Conference, I asked the young people: what do you want? What do you want from the government? These are questions to which they must give answers, because in 20 years they will be governing the country. That is why I ask young people: what can we do concretely to improve the country's governance, what do we propose to bring the rampant corruption under control and achieve greater transparency in public finances?
To address these challenges, we must work with young people and take care of their education. The problem is that this generational protest currently lacks clear leadership. Young people have come to demonstrate by answering the call on social media, but at the moment there do not seem to be any leaders capable of moving from protest to political proposals. This is a problem because if you want to engage with them, you have no concrete interlocutor to turn to.
As this is a leaderless protest, there is a risk that it can be infiltrated by politicians with an eye on the parliamentary elections in 2026. The hope is that from this young generation, new leaders will emerge with a different vision of politics who can present themselves in time for this election. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides, 19/9/2024)

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