1/9 Three decades into the transition from an authoritarian one-party state to multiparty democracy, and well over a decade into a new progressive constitutional dispensation, Kenya’s democratic transition is seriously imperiled.

2/9 The democracy deficit in Kenya has manifested itself most glaringly in the electoral sphere, begging the question as to why the stakes in Kenya are evidently so much higher than in other seemingly comparable countries.

3/9 Of the seven multiparty elections since 1992, only one election is generally acknowledged as free and fair (2003) and four of the remaining six have featured widespread violence (1992,1997, 2007, 2017) that is, only two have been peaceful.

4/9 Political power is seldom an end in itself. Research conducted by AfriCOG shows a nexus between electoral malfeasance and plunder. Money is a big enough motive for people to want to stay in power by hook or crook.

5/9 This nexus implies that addressing Kenya’s electoral malfeasance should not be confined to the legal institutional framework and mechanics of the electoral process but within the broader political economy of corruption.

6/9 Electoral failure has consumed two electoral bodies. A third one is mortally wounded. Similarly, anti-corruption discourse and effort that is confined to legal and institutional reforms are just as superfluous.

7/9 As anti-corruption crusader John Githongo never tires to remind us, Kenya has created some of the most elaborate legal and institutional anti-corruption infrastructures in the world over the last three decades, yet corruption flourishes with impunity.

8/9 As with election bodies, the country is now on its third-generation anti-corruption body, one whose autonomy and independence is properly anchored in the constitution, but it is far from evident that it is faring any better than its precursors.

9/9 View our report on budgeted corruption – “Highway Robbery: Budgeting for state capture - A Case Study of Infrastructure Spending Under the Jubilee Administration. Find the report here – https://bit.ly/36rv0kN 

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