Political activist Kasmuel McOure has once again thrust himself into the national spotlight, announcing that his outfit, the Broad-Based Youth Front, will now engage the government directly on issues affecting young people. Framed as a bold, principled pivot away from political intermediaries, the declaration has nonetheless reignited simmering suspicion among the very youth constituency McOure claims to represent.
McOure says the movement will no longer rely on politicians who were conspicuously absent during last year’s historic youth-led street demonstrations against the Finance Bill. He warned that some leaders are now scrambling to reinsert themselves into youth affairs without demonstrating what he termed “genuine commitment.”https://siayatoday.com/?p=8750&preview=true[expander_maker id=”1″ ]Read more hidden text[/expander_maker]
“We are in this Broad-Based Government until it fully delivers its mandate, and we intend to own that process to the very end. We will not be swayed by opportunistic rhetoric or political reinventions disguised as youth advocacy. Starting today, we will lobby the government directly through a unified youth front,” McOure said.
Yet beneath the soaring rhetoric lies a credibility problem that refuses to go away.
Among many young activists, McOure’s sudden prominence is viewed with deep skepticism. Insiders from the 2024 Anti-Finance Bill protests—widely regarded as one of the most organic youth uprisings in recent Kenyan history—claim McOure played only a peripheral role at best. The real organising, mobilisation and risk-taking, they argue, was done by nameless young protesters who bore the brunt of police brutality, arrests and intimidation.
To these critics, McOure’s current posture feels less like leadership and more like harvesting political capital from the sweat and blood of others.
Social media discourse reflects this mistrust, with many youths questioning how a figure who was largely absent at the height of the protests has emerged as one of their loudest self-appointed spokespersons.
Fueling the suspicion further is McOure’s fluid political alignment. His past association with the ODM Party, followed by his current embrace of President William Ruto’s UDA-led Broad-Based Government, has cast him—rightly or wrongly—as a political drifter bereft of grounded policy ideas.
To detractors, the shift reinforces the perception of a man more interested in the glamour, access and financial benefits of leadership than in the hard, unglamorous work of building a coherent youth policy agenda.
Still, McOure insists the move is principled.
He reiterated that the youth front joined the Broad-Based Government arrangement in the interest of national stability and reform, calling for continued public support from those who backed the initiative during internal negotiations.
In remarks that also targeted his former allies, McOure said the arrangement involved coordinated political cooperation, including negotiations on electoral zones and mutual support across regions—talks he claimed were conducted transparently.
“Elected members of ODM must not engage in political chicanery. The party entered the Broad-Based arrangement for the sake of the country. You pushed for this arrangement in boardrooms; you must not now pretend to oppose it when you face the people,” he said.
McOure who was just a TikTok content creator the other day has brazenly challenged ODM Party Secretary General Edwin Sifuna to leave the party instead of maintaining a continued hardstance against the Broadbased arrangement.
He further urged party members to stop weaponising internal disputes to confuse supporters, stressing that the agreement was reached at the highest levels and must be respected.
“We shall not allow the words of our party’s spokesperson to be used against our party and its candidates,” McOure added.
McOure says the Broad-Based Youth Front will push for accountability and reforms that reflect the priorities of Kenya’s largest demographic group. But for many young Kenyans, the jury is still out.
Is Kasmuel McOure genuinely repositioning youth power to confront the state directly—or is he simply another political actor repackaging himself after a protest movement he neither led nor paid for?
As Kenya’s restless youth watch closely, one truth is clear: in the post-protest era, authenticity—not proximity to power—will determine who truly speaks for them.
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