Coastal party PAA wants leaders in the region to join it to become stronger and have bargaining power.
Secretary general Lucas Maitha said they target at least 15 seats in Parliament in 2027.
The party has three MPs and 27 MCAs across the country.
Speaking in Rabai, Kilifi county on Friday, Maitha said the ruling party negotiates with ODM on coastal issues because ODM has numbers.
“Yet we are a party that is in government. We are in the Kenya Kwanza coalition. In Parliament, this MP (Rabai’s Kenga Mupe) sits on the government side but when it comes to consultations because our number is low, they consult ODM. They say ‘In Coast, once we talk to ODM, we are home and dry’,” he said.
Maitha spoke during an engagement with the youth at Shika Adabu Hall in Rabai courtesy of Centre for Multiparty Democracy.
In Parliament, PAA has Rabai’s Mupe, Kinango’s Gonzi Rai and Ganze’s Kenneth Kazungu.
The party also has 15 MCAs in the Coast, one in Kakamega county, and the rest are scattered across the country.
“If we get at least 10 MPs in Parliament, we will be able to form a parliamentary group and we will be recognised. We will be at the negotiation table,” Maitha said.
The former Malindi Town MP said coastal leaders must not accept to be gifted in politics but work to earn the right to have whatever they get.
He lashed out at leaders in the region for allowing even the smallest tenders to go to non-locals despite there being local expertise.
“The other day in Malindi, I saw a contractor come looking for a site he was allocated. Locals asked him what he was going to do there. It turns out he had been given a contract to build the Grade 9 classrooms," Maitha said.
“Even a simple thing as a classroom cannot be given to locals. Why? Because they are the ones in the decision-making table and they only fight for their own people. Yet our coastal leaders are silent about this."
He said that is why PAA has to be built into a stronger machine that can sweep seats in the region to give the region bargaining power.
Maitha said the youth in the region have to be empowered otherwise they will be taken advantage of by parties from other regions.
“Then after elections, they will remain in the villages with no jobs, no skills, no expertise and no prospects. All because they have not been empowered. Then the insecurity levels in the region rises because youth must get money for upkeep,” the former MP said.
He said for any country to prosper, it must invest in youth. PAA, he said, must fight for its own adding that nobody will fight for you.
Maitha said Rigathi Gachagua’s ouster from the DP position is a wake-up call to Coast leaders.
“We donate our political power to somebody else to negotiate for us. Why is Coast the only region supporting other parties instead of their own party? If you go to Eastern, they all support Wiper, Nyanza they all support ODM, Rift Valley they all support UDA,” he said.
“Our parents did what they did. We are doing what we are doing. But you, the youth are tasked with continuing our fight for liberation of the coastal person.”
