Recent by-elections lay bare alarming path country may take toward 2027

Here’s a question. Did we just have “third world” by-elections?  Or rather, “buy-elections”? Here’s another. 616 days, or 88 weeks from today, will our new-fangled “third world to first” ruling regime literally have to buy all of us in 2027 in order to remain in office? Tough questions.

Last week was as amusing as it was bemusing. At its tail end, we had US President Donald Trump offering as a Thanksgiving message to his fellow Americans a proposed pause in “third world” migration to their “first world”. This being the pejorative version of third world as, using his own words from the past, “shithole countries”. Not the 20th century version in which third world actually meant “geopolitical non-alignment” with the NATO (as West) or Warsaw (as East) pacts.

Sadly, history is written by the victors, so “third world” meant “uncivilised” or “dirt poor”. And, for an America that still splits Europe into “old vs new”, the term “Global South” doesn’t exist.

At its beginning, we had a state visit by Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia’s Prime Minister. He offered voluble support for President William Ruto’s “strong leadership”, which the latter reciprocated by positing Kenya’s intention to mirror, even catch up with, Malaysia’s progress.  Without going into historical nitty-gritty, it was intriguing that Malaysia, not Singapore, is our latest benchmark.

Two countries that were once briefly one, but pursued different paths. Has anyone actually read Lee Kuan Yew, or Mahathir Mohamed, on the intricate nature of Singapore-Malaysia relations? Then again, we are Kenya the business; the “multi-aligned” masters of what the Financial Times once described as “geostrategic entrepreneurialism” in today’s “a la carte” foreign policy space.

In between these very big things, we were consumed by Thursday’s buy-elections, sorry, by-elections, which some have equated to our infamous “little general election” of 1966. Let’s just say that they were as hot as America’s mid-terms, a signal for our main event in 2027. And they offered us at least four thoughts not just for 2027, but Kenya’s future. Let’s dig a bit further. 

The first thought is obvious; this Ruto administration is willing to throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into 2027.  This is not unusual for any incumbency. The difference now seems to be that 2027 looks like a truly existential endeavour. Money will be poured, goodies will be dished out and development is already being accelerated (so what were they doing for three years?).

If the many “buy-election” rumours are true, think fiscal discombobulation, not consolidation.  And if you haven’t quite figured it out, the people’s poverty is a tried and tested campaign tool.

But there’s more. Goonery (or is it goonism?) will be the hottest gig in town. Violence and intimidation will be fine-tuned into electoral tools of trade. Security forces will be repurposed towards regime advantage; disrupting campaigns while playing innocent bystander during voting.

In the worst-case scenario, lives may be lost in pre and post-election violence. There is a reason why someone on X called Kenya’s 2027 the final after Tanzania’s quarter final and Uganda’s semi. This may sound like a very negative take, but the signs are evident from Thursday’s by-elections.

Which brings us to the second thought. That all these bad things will not happen if the election isn’t competitive. In Kenya, that would be similar to asking if the sky is red, not blue. The regime’s narrow margins of victory in the most competitive constituencies, despite the massive misapplication of state resources against a barely coherent “united opposition” is a telling sign. It is not beyond reason to think that the way to reduce competition is to split it up, or eliminate it.

The third thought is that 2027 looks increasingly unattractive to the ordinary voter, especially younger voters, including Gen Zs. Currently low voter registration by these groups is music to the ears of our established politicos. For this regime, a suppressed vote (15-16 million) is clearly far more advantageous than a wave (22 million); it’s the known voters who will vote. The term “choiceless election” comes to mind, though neither registering nor voting is also a choice.

The fourth thought from these by-elections is that IEBC already looks seriously out of its depth. Beyond the realisation that you could probably draw a straight line between every IEBC Commissioner and a senior member of the current broad-based government, you get the sense that we have a “hear no evil, see no evil” electoral bureaucracy already captured by the state.

We are probably now at the point where we should ask if we need a Sh50-60 billion IEBC in the first place. They can’t disqualify rogue candidates, they can’t censure rogue campaigns and they can’t annul rogue polls. Last week, a neighbour told me she spent the whole of Thursday night in one place protecting her candidate’s vote (he won). What a lovely, trusting country we have! If, beyond clerical work, all IEBC does is count, we could get a computer to do that better, right?

Basically, let’s prepare for a third world election in 2027. To give us more third world leaders. Who will have won by keeping the people in third world living conditions in order to bribe them.

Of course, this could have been so different. We might have been looking at a voter-centric, not politico-centric, election. Where the essential task would be to enhance the voter experience. Aren’t we aiming for this with the taxpayer experience, or the citizen’s health care experience? It is impossible in Kenya today to find a mindset that sees the voter as the fulcrum of the election.

We might have been looking at a truly digital election. Blockchain technology. End-to-end voter experience.  Where the individual voter is able to verify that their vote was correctly recorded and correctly counted.  Where blockchain means you can’t change the past, hack the present or manipulate the future. Where polling stations are physical or virtual and you vote from anywhere.

Of course, a digital election means no more juicy third party tenders for our super-expensive election materials, which these days we hear are classified as either strategic or non-strategic.

A digital election that is voter-centric would definitely be attractive to younger voters, but why not take this further by making voting compulsory; having first ensured that people are automatically registered as voters when they turn 18?  Yes, now we are talking digital identity.

And last but not least, having secured the voters, shouldn’t their question be what we vote for before who we vote in?  In short, a vote on the issues and ideas before identity and individuals. Contrary to conventional wisdom, voters are rational, it’s their voting rationale that’s the issue. 

To cut a long story short, we can’t say what a first world election looks like, but whatever it is, we are not even close!  But we still think third world elections will take us to the first world.