For most young people, the upcoming election is not about hope. Hope is abstract, cheap, and endlessly recyclable. What this generation would vote for, some eagerly, some reluctantly, some for the first time, is accountability. Not the cinematic kind, not the post-election press conference version, but the everyday, measurable kind that shows up in pay slips, rent receipts, offer letters, and resignation emails. The kind that answers a very basic question: will life after this election be materially different for those trying to build it from scratch?
With the election days away, young people are not speculating about who will win as much as they are preparing a checklist of what must follow. For a generation that has timed its education, careers, relocations, and risks around uncertainty, this election represents a pivotal moment, as it creates an opening for long-delayed reforms. The expectation is simple and uncompromising, as governance must now translate into opportunity.
For years, the idea of a good future has been narrowly defined. Respectability has been synonymous with security, and security has been almost exclusively associated with government employment. Entire career paths have been socially downgraded in the process. Private sector jobs, entrepreneurship, creative work, research, and skilled technical roles have all been treated as secondary options and acceptable detours until something more stable comes along. This has distorted not only aspirations but policy priorities.
A post-election government is expected to correct this imbalance by actively nurturing a diversified job market where dignity is not monopolised by the public sector. That means policies that incentivise private firms to hire and train fresh graduates. It means labour protections that recognise entry-level vulnerability. It also means publicly acknowledging that a healthy economy cannot funnel millions of ambitious young people into a few thousand exam-based positions without wasting human potential at scale.
Closely tied to this is the expectation that entrepreneurship will finally be treated as a serious economic lever rather than a selectively celebrated headline. Over the past decade, founders have learned to read between the lines: funding often follows familiarity, visibility often depends on proximity, and support systems tend to reward presentation over product. The next phase must look different. Young people are watching for policies that support founders, not politically connected pitch decks. Transparent grant criteria, independent evaluation mechanisms, and publicly disclosed funding decisions are no longer optional. Beyond funding, reform is expected in the form of simplified compliance, tax relief during early years, and a regulatory environment that understands experimentation and failure as features of innovation, not flaws. The state’s role here is not to pick winners, but to ensure that the race itself is fair.
Education remains the fault line where expectation is sharpest. Degrees have multiplied, but confidence in their value has not. Students graduate fluent in theory yet unprepared for practice, armed with grades but lacking marketable skills. Employers complain, institutions defend themselves, and graduates are left navigating the gap alone. The expectation after this election is not cosmetic curriculum updates, but structural alignment. Degrees must translate into employability. That requires sustained collaboration between universities and industry, mandatory and meaningful internships, and outcome-based accountability for institutions. If graduates consistently fail to transition into work, that failure must be measured and addressed. Education policy can no longer operate in isolation from labour market realities.
For women, the expectations are both urgent and overdue. The question is no longer whether women will participate in the workforce, but whether the system will finally be designed with that participation as a given. Women already work, both formally and informally, paid and unpaid. What they expect now is a policy that assumes their continuity. Workplaces that are structured for long-term inclusion. Labour laws that enforce equal pay and safe conditions. Affordable childcare that prevents career interruptions from becoming permanent exits. Transport systems that do not turn daily commutes into acts of endurance. When policy treats women’s employment as inevitable rather than exceptional, productivity rises, and talent retention follows. This is not a social concession; it is an economic correction.
Urban life is another arena where expectations are converging. For young professionals, cities have become places of survival rather than growth. Salaries struggle to keep pace with rent, time disappears into traffic, and quality of life erodes quietly. The post-election expectation is not luxury development, but liveability. Affordable rental housing for early-career workers, efficient public transport that respects time as a productive resource, and decentralised urban planning that allows opportunity to exist beyond a handful of overburdened zones. Cities must be redesigned as ecosystems where ambition is supported, not punished. Underlying all of this is a broader shift in how young people relate to the state. This is a generation that is informed, comparative, and acutely aware of global benchmarks. They are not waiting to be inspired; they are watching to be convinced. Accountability, in this context, is not rhetorical, but measurable. It shows up in employment data, business survival rates, graduate outcomes, women’s workforce retention, and cost-of-living indices. It demands timelines instead of slogans, benchmarks instead of visions, and course correction instead of denial.
The election has created a rare alignment between political transition and generational readiness. Young people are not asking for perfection. They are asking for direction that is coherent, fair, and economically grounded. They understand that reform is incremental, but they also understand when momentum is absent. What they expect now is evidence that opportunity is being built deliberately, across sectors, across cities, and across careers. This moment will not be judged by speeches delivered this week, but by policies implemented in the months that follow. Whether a graduate can find meaningful work without surrendering dignity. Whether a founder can build without navigating informal gatekeepers. Whether a woman can plan a career without calculating exits. Whether a city allows its youth to live, not just endure. These are the outcomes that will define this electoral cycle for young people.
As the country prepares to vote, the expectation is clear. The next government inherits not just power, but scrutiny. Young people are no longer waiting to be told to hope. They are prepared to measure. And this time, they are paying attention to what happens after the ballots are counted.
