Senator Edwin Sifuna with Trans Nzioa Governor George Natembeya and Kakamega Senator Dr Bonny Khalwale during a rally in Kakamega. PHOTO/UGC.
By PATRICK MAYOYO
I watched Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna’s interview with Citizen TV’s Yvonne Okwara, and the developments that followed, and they point to a potentially significant shift in Kenya’s political arena.
The conclusion is striking: the conversation around the 2027 elections may already be changing, even before the campaigns are formally under way.
Not because Sifuna has unveiled a revolutionary economic formula. Not because he has promised every Kenyan a road, a stadium, a job or a house. And not even because the former ODM Secretary-General has formally declared himself a presidential candidate.
It is because he appears to be attempting something more fundamental: changing the question Kenyans will ask before they vote for a presidential candidate during the 2027 General Election.
For decades, Kenyan presidential politics has been dominated by the politics of promise. Candidates arrive with manifestos thick enough to require their own briefcases. They promise roads, dams, hospitals, markets, stadiums, affordable housing, thousands of jobs and billions in investment.
Then power changes hands. The promises are repackaged. Some are implemented, some are abandoned, some are renamed and others disappear into the great Kenyan political graveyard of “tutafanya” (we will do).
Sifuna’s emerging message is different. His argument, in essence, is that Kenya does not first need another president who can recite an impressive development shopping list. It needs a president who will obey the Constitution that gives government the power to pursue development in the first place.
That sounds abstract, wait a minute. Kenya’s 2010 Constitution deliberately changed the architecture of power. Article 10 binds State organs, State officers, public officers and other persons exercising public authority to national values including the rule of law, democracy and participation of the people, human dignity, equality, equity, social justice, human rights, good governance, integrity, transparency, accountability and sustainable development.
That is the political terrain Sifuna is beginning to occupy. And it is precisely why his message presents a more complicated challenge to President William Ruto than another opposition politician promising cheaper unga (maize flour) or a thousand kilometres of new roads.
This is the point State House cannot afford to ignore. If the 2027 election becomes another auction of development promises, an incumbent president has an obvious advantage. He controls the machinery of government. He can point to projects under construction, inaugurations, new programmes, new funds, new roads and new housing schemes.
But what happens if voters begin asking a different question? Not: “What will you build for me?” But: “How will you exercise power over me?” That is a much harder question for any incumbent.
Because the Constitution is not merely a catalogue of things government should deliver. It is also a rulebook governing how public power must be exercised while those things are being delivered.
The Constitution does not say Kenya must choose between prosperity and democracy. It demands both. It does not say Kenyans must surrender accountability in exchange for development. It does not say a government can ignore transparency, accountability and human rights because it has a road project.
Senator Sifuna displays money donated by well-wishers in Kakamega town. PHOTO/UGC.
It does not say public participation becomes optional whenever State House has decided that a project is good for the country. That is the intellectual space Sifuna appears to be moving into. And suddenly, the 2027 contest looks less like a competition between rival shopping lists and more like a referendum on the character of the Kenyan State.
Consider the housing levy. The political argument should not be reduced to whether affordable housing is a good idea. Of course decent housing is desirable. Article 43 expressly recognises the right to accessible and adequate housing, alongside rights to health, food, water, social security and education. The harder question is how government finances and administers such a programme.
The history of the housing levy itself demonstrates why constitutionalism matters. The original levy introduced through the Finance Act 2023 was declared unconstitutional by the High Court, although subsequent litigation overtook that specific legal framework after Parliament enacted the Affordable Housing Act in 2024.
The Supreme Court ultimately did not pronounce the constitutionality of the levy in that earlier litigation because the new legislation had changed the legal landscape. That history should teach Kenya something important.
A government can have a noble objective and still be required to follow the law. The same principle applies to procurement.
The Affordable Housing Programme may have legitimate objectives: reducing the housing deficit, creating employment and stimulating construction. But an Auditor-General’s review has raised concerns about implementation, supervision, delays and the awarding of multiple projects to single contractors.
The appropriate response to such questions is not political outrage. It is documentation. Publish the contracts. Explain the procurement process. Show who bid. Show who won. Show why they won. Show the value. Show the milestones. Show the money. That is constitutionalism in practice.
And it is precisely the kind of politics that is more difficult to neutralise with a new slogan or another launch ceremony. This is where the President’s July 30 special national address becomes politically interesting.
Ruto announced a national conversation to develop a long-term national development plan beyond Vision 2030 and said nationwide consultations would formally begin on August 12, 2026. He framed the exercise around a people-driven development charter; Vision 2060 anchored in the aspirations of the Constitution, stressing prosperity, equality, social justice and sustainable development.
That is significant. Because suddenly the President was talking about many of the same broad themes that Sifuna has been elevating: constitutionalism, national unity, participation, institutions, long-term development and the kind of Kenya future generations should inherit.
One can interpret this innocently: perhaps the President has independently concluded that Kenya needs a new national development conversation as Vision 2030 approaches its end. But politically, timing matters. The sequence is what makes it interesting.
Sifuna spends his media appearances arguing that Kenya’s problem is not simply a shortage of projects but a crisis of governance, accountability and constitutional fidelity.
Then the President steps forward to tell Kenyans that the country needs a new long-term development conversation anchored in the Constitution. While that does not prove panic, it does suggest that the political centre of gravity may be moving.
Senator Sifuna with DCP deputy party leader Cleophas Malala who announced that DCP party leader Rigathi Gachagua is ready to endorse Sifuna for presidency if he is going to be barred from contesting. PHOTO/UGC.
And when an incumbent begins answering the opposition’s philosophical question rather than merely attacking the opposition’s policies, you know the opposition has achieved something. The most powerful part of Sifuna’s argument is not that Kenya should become Singapore as President Ruto is advocating for.
It is that Kenya cannot simply copy the visible achievements of successful countries while ignoring the institutional systems that produced them.
President Ruto has repeatedly invoked countries that transformed themselves economically. Singapore is an obvious example. And Singapore’s story is indeed extraordinary. When it became independent in 1965, it faced severe unemployment, poor housing and limited natural resources. Its early strategy focused on industrialisation and employment.
The country invested heavily in education, infrastructure and public housing. Its Housing and Development Board began addressing the severe housing shortage in the early 1960s, while public housing became a central component of Singapore’s nation-building project. But here in Kenya, we are building what we call affordable housing on government land and selling them to the public. What an irony!
But there was another ingredient in Singapore’s prosperity: institutions.
Singapore built a formidable anti-corruption framework. Its Prevention of Corruption Act dates from 1960, and its anti-corruption agency, Corrupt Practices Investigations Bureau (CPIB) investigates corruption regardless of the rank or political affiliation of the person involved.
This is an important correction to the simplistic version of the Singapore story. Here in Kenya, the first thing President Ruto did when he came to power was to order the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to drop corruption cases against people affiliated to his UDA party he said had been prosecuted unfairly. That’s not what a country that wants to achieve what Singapore has done do.
Singapore did not become prosperous merely because its leaders announced a vision. It created institutions capable of executing that vision.
It punished corruption. It developed human capital. It planned. It built. It maintained administrative capacity. It created confidence that rules would mean something tomorrow as well as today.
That is precisely where Sifuna’s constitutional argument becomes an economic argument. Rule of law is not the enemy of development. It is one of development’s foundations.
China provides another powerful example, although Kenya must be careful about what exactly it learns from it.
Over roughly four decades, China lifted close to 800 million people out of extreme poverty, according to the World Bank. Its transformation combined economic growth with infrastructure, education, health services, employment, targeted poverty reduction and rural development.
The lesson is not simply that governments should spend more money. It is that poverty reduction became a long-term state project.
China identified poor households and communities, directed resources towards specific constraints, expanded infrastructure and education, supported employment and local economic activity, and maintained a system for measuring progress.
Senator Sifuna displays the Tawe Movement symbol during a rally in Kakamega. PHOTO/UGC.
That is fundamentally different from standing on a podium and announcing that poverty will disappear. It is also why Kenya’s political conversation should mature beyond the endless competition over who can make the biggest promise.
A serious anti-poverty programme requires competent institutions. It requires reliable data. It requires accountability. It requires monitoring. It requires resources to reach their intended beneficiaries. It requires consequences when money is stolen and it requires continuity beyond who is the president.
Sifuna’s emerging message therefore has a potentially powerful economic core: constitutionalism is not an alternative to development; it is the operating system through which sustainable development should be delivered.
The right to life changes the emotional equation and this is where Sifuna’s politics could become particularly potent. Article 26 of the Constitution provides that every person has the right to life. That is more than a legal provision.
In Kenya, it carries historical memory. It evokes political violence. It evokes extrajudicial killings, abductions, and forced disappearances alleged over different administrations. It evokes protesters. It evokes families searching for missing relatives.
It evokes the fear of a citizen who suddenly discovers that the machinery of the State can become more powerful than his or her own rights.
A politician promising a road cannot answer that fear. A politician promising a stadium cannot answer it. A politician promising a housing unit cannot answer it.
The question becomes more basic: can I live safely under your government? Can I criticise you without being punished? Can I demonstrate peacefully without fearing unlawful violence?
Can I take the government to court and expect the court to remain independent? Can a public officer refuse an unlawful instruction? Can Parliament scrutinise the Executive?
Can investigative agencies investigate politically connected people? Can procurement officials say no? Can journalists expose wrongdoing without intimidation? And can citizens demand to know how their money is being spent?
Those are not opposition luxuries. They are the practical meaning of constitutional government.
And this is where the Sifuna proposition becomes politically dangerous for an incumbent. Because it shifts the debate from delivery to power.
And this is why the old campaign promise is losing its magic. Kenyans are not necessarily opposed to development. They are tired of being treated as customers at a political supermarket.
A bull Kakamega Senator Dr Bonny Khalwale grazing at Sifuna home in Bungoma. PHOTO/UGC.
One politician offers a road. Another offers a job. Another offers a hospital. Another offers a title deed. Another offers a housing unit. And another promises to transform Kenya into Singapore.
But the citizen increasingly wants to know what happens when the government fails. Who audits it? Who investigates it? Who challenges it? Who prosecutes wrongdoing? Who protects the whistle-blower? Who protects the protester? And who protects the voter?
That is why Sifuna’s message could resonate beyond the traditional opposition base. It does not require every Kenyan to agree with his economic prescriptions. It does not require every Kenyan to support Linda Mwananchi.
Indeed, Linda Mwananchi remains a political formation whose ultimate structure and presidential ambitions are still evolving, rather than an established presidential party. Its nationwide mobilisation under Sifuna and allies has nevertheless made it an increasingly visible feature of the 2027 political landscape.
The significance therefore lies less in the machinery of the movement and more in the message it is testing. This is the question Ruto cannot answer with the promise of another project.
The 2027 presidential election is scheduled for Tuesday, 10 August 2027. That gives Ruto and his opponents roughly a year to convince Kenyans.
The President has the strongest institutional advantage. He can point to programmes. He can point to roads. He can point to housing. He can point to infrastructure. He can point to his long-term development vision.
But Sifuna is trying to force him onto a different battlefield. Show us not only what you built. Show us how you used power. Show us the contracts. Show us the audits. Show us the debt. Show us the procurement. Show us public participation.
Show us institutional independence. Show us respect for court decisions. Show us accountability. Show us that the citizen is not merely a taxpayer financing a government project, but a constitutional rights-holder whose consent, dignity and participation matter.
That is a much more uncomfortable election question. Because roads have inauguration ceremonies. Constitutionalism has receipts. A stadium can be photographed. Accountability can be audited. A housing project can be branded. Transparency can be tested.
A manifesto can promise everything. The Constitution tells government what it is allowed to do while pursuing those promises.
That is the battle Sifuna appears to be taking to 2027. And perhaps that explains why the response to his interviews has been so aggressive.
When a politician talks about the economy, opponents can attack his economic numbers. When he talks about infrastructure, they can produce competing projects. When he talks about jobs, they can produce statistics.
But when he talks about constitutionalism, the argument becomes harder. Because the Constitution belongs to everyone.
It belongs to Ruto’s supporters. It belongs to Sifuna’s supporters. It belongs to the unemployed graduate. It belongs to the businesswoman paying taxes.
Kitui Senator Enock Wambua welcomes Senator Sifuna in Kitui County. PHOTO/UGC.
It belongs to the farmer waiting for a market. It belongs to the police officer obeying orders. It belongs to the protester. It belongs to the child who has not yet voted.
And it belongs even to the Kenyan who disagrees with Sifuna. That is the genius; and potentially the weakness ,of this strategy.
The genius is that it can turn the election from a contest between politicians into a contest over the nature of government. The weakness is that constitutionalism is harder to sell than a road. It requires patience. It requires institutions. It requires credible people.
And, eventually, it requires Sifuna himself to answer the same questions he is asking of Ruto. Because constitutionalism must become a governing discipline once power is obtained.
That is why the emerging Sifuna message is bigger than Sifuna. It is an argument that Kenya should stop electing presidents primarily on what they promise to build and start judging them by how they exercise power.
And that is a potentially seismic change. The Constitution itself provides the bridge.
Article 10 places rule of law, democracy, participation, equality, human rights, good governance, integrity, transparency, accountability and sustainable development in the same constitutional universe.
In other words, Kenya does not have to choose between a better life and a better government. It needs both. The roads matter. The houses matter. The jobs matter. The cost of living matters. The hospitals matter. The debt matters.
But so does the State that builds them. Because a road built through opaque procurement is not automatically good governance. A house built through an unaccountable system is not automatically constitutional government.
A development project does not acquire legitimacy merely because it has been branded “transformative”. And a president does not become visionary merely because he announces a 30-year plan.
The ultimate test is simpler. Can the Kenyan citizen prosper without surrendering his rights?
Can the State become richer without becoming more arbitrary? Can development happen without corruption? Can government become stronger without citizens becoming weaker?
That is the question Sifuna is beginning to put at the centre of the 2027 election. And if he succeeds, the political class will discover that the old five-kilogramme manifesto may no longer be enough.
Kenyans may not be asking, “What will you build for me?” They may be asking something far more consequential: “What kind of State will you create, and will that State respect me when I disagree with you?”
That is not merely a campaign question. That is a constitutional question. And for an incumbent president, it may be the most dangerous question of all.
The aggressive campaign by UDA operatives to discredit Senator Sifuna should not be viewed simply through the lens of presidential ambition. At its core, the contest is about who gets to define the political conversation ahead of the 2027 elections.
Sifuna is shifting the debate from personalities and succession politics to power, governance and constitutionalism. That reframing challenges an established political order because it places the exercise of power, accountability and fidelity to the Constitution at the centre of the electoral conversation.
For Senator Sifuna and Linda Mwananchi supporters, constitutionalism should therefore remain the defining political narrative heading into 2027.
The strategy should be to resist deliberate distractions, keep the focus on governance and accountability, and force the political debate back to the fundamental question: who exercises power, how is it exercised, and who holds those in power accountable?
