Mediocrity as National Policy
It is finally sinking in—albeit too slowly—that Kenya’s politics is not a contest of ideas but a circus of mediocrity carefully normalized to dull the collective mind. The oppressed masses, forever clutching at the illusion of salvation, are fixated on 2027 as if the ballot box will somehow deliver a breakthrough from oppression. Yet the political menu on offer—Kalonzo Musyoka, Rigathi Gachagua, Martha Karua, David Maraga, Fred Matiang’i—offers no departure from the script. These are not alternatives but recycled custodians of the same predatory order.
What awaits Kenya after 2027 is not the dawn of transformation but another cycle of gnashing of teeth, protests in the streets, and chants of “Ruto Must Go!” directed at the president after he occupies the State House. This is not conjecture; it is the logic of a system where elections serve not as instruments of liberation but as rituals of renewal for the ruling elite. The tragedy is that many Kenyans, conditioned by tribal allegiances and shallow political education, mistake this theatre for genuine democracy.
The harsh truth is that the 2027 elections are already decided. President William Ruto has rigged them in advance—not through ballot stuffing yet, but by monopolizing the instruments of state violence, appointing his loyalist as the chair of the IEBC, and fusing the machinery of government with his personal empire. The illusion of contestation remains, but the outcome is fixed.
The Ethnic Card and the Ruto–Raila Pact
To understand the inevitability of 2027, one must grasp the brutal logic of Kenya’s ruling class. Their greatest weapon is ethnicity—a tool deployed with surgical precision to divide the masses and preserve elite unity. Ruto’s recent courtship of Luo Nyanza illustrates this perfectly. By camping in Homabay with promises of development, invoking his “Nilotic roots,” and reminding Kenyans that he once shared a tent with Raila in ODM, Ruto is not merely seeking legitimacy. He is executing a strategy to neutralize the most potent opposition bloc in Kenyan politics.
The Luo community has historically stood at the epicentre of resistance. Time and again, they have demonstrated an unparalleled willingness to confront the state, disrupt economic life, and pay the price of blood in pursuit of justice. Ruto understands this reality with cold precision: if Luos are assimilated into the power structure, the backbone of opposition collapses.
By drawing Raila Odinga into government, Ruto achieved in one stroke what decades of repression and bullets could not accomplish. The Gen Z protests—militant, raw, and uncompromising—fizzled almost overnight after Raila’s co-optation. The youth who stormed Parliament in 2025, braving bullets to confront state power, were not the pampered scions of Karen or Muthaiga. They were sons of Kibera, Mathare, Githurai disciples of Raila, whose militancy evaporated once “Baba” crossed into the state’s embrace.
This exposed the uncomfortable truth: for all their rhetoric about independence, the protests were tethered, at least partially, to the gravitational pull of Raila’s politics. When he shifted, the movement collapsed. In this sense, Ruto’s Luo strategy is working with ruthless efficiency—containing, co-opting, and redirecting rebellion into loyalty.
Opposition Without Courage, Elections Without Choice
The Kenyan opposition is a hollow edifice. Unlike Raila Odinga, no leader today is willing to put life on the line for liberation. Their absence during the Albert Ojwang protests in July and the Saba Saba anniversary of 2025 revealed the nakedness of their commitment. For them, politics is not about sacrifice but negotiation: bargaining for cabinet slots, trading loyalty for patronage, defecting depending on power balance and protecting personal wealth.
The belief that a figure like Kalonzo Musyoka could rally a mass uprising in 2027 is a fantasy. Kalonzo is already flirting with the government, sensing the futility of resistance. Rigathi Gachagua, tethered to Mount Kenya alone, lacks the national breadth to mount a serious challenge. Martha Karua, though principled in speech, has long been politically neutered. Matiang’i, once feared, has faded into irrelevance. This is the line-up upon which millions of Kenyans pin their hopes—a tragic indictment of a nation starved of authentic opposition.
Meanwhile, Ruto is not merely defending his current term. He is safeguarding an empire of plunder, wealth siphoned into trillions, which demands continuity of state capture. To imagine that he will surrender such power to the whims of an election is delusional. The ruling elite, of which Ruto is merely the current face, views the Constitution as disposable parchment. It can be amended at will, shredded through hurried referenda, or weaponized to deliver preordained outcomes—such as the creation of a Prime Minister’s office to reconfigure elite power-sharing.
Thus, when Kenyans speak of 2027 as an “open race,” they are speaking of shadows on the wall. The real play is decided in the closed rooms of the capitalist elite, where ethnicity is weaponized, alliances are forged, and the people’s destiny is auctioned off long before they cast a vote.
Why Ruto Will Be President—And Why It Matters
If Kenyans are hoping for Ruto’s defeat in 2027, they should think again. His victory is assured not by popularity but by architecture—he has built the scaffolding of control brick by brick. He has neutralized the opposition by co-opting Raila, silenced the streets by dissolving Gen Z militancy, and secured the electoral machinery through loyalist appointments. His reliance on the Luo elite ensures that the most dangerous opposition bloc is caged, while Kalonzo’s impending defection signals the collapse of any coherent counterweight.
Even beyond 2027, Ruto’s calculus is clear. He is grooming loyalists in Luo Nyanza not simply for symbolic balance but to safeguard his interests post-presidency. The Luo elite, for their part, are calculating that their patience will be rewarded with a shot at the presidency in 2032. Thus, both sides are complicit in reducing liberation to elite arithmetic, where the masses are pawns in a game designed to protect stolen wealth.
What does this mean for ordinary Kenyans? It means the 2027 elections will not deliver transformation. They will reproduce the same order under a different mask: taxation without relief, development as tokenism, and repression as routine. It means that Ruto, entering his second term unburdened by re-election anxieties, will unleash levels of ruthlessness that will make his current governance look like a curtain-raiser. The state will become more predatory, the opposition more docile, and the people more disillusioned.
Beyond the Illusion of the Ballot
Kenya’s tragedy lies not simply in rigged elections but in the collective illusion that elections themselves can deliver emancipation. The system is designed to produce winners from within the same capitalist ruling class—leaders who differ in tribe and rhetoric but converge in plunder. Ethnicity is the whip, patronage is the glue, and the masses are the sacrificial lambs in a democracy that is democratic only in name.
Ruto will be president in 2027, not because the people choose him, but because the ruling elite have already decided it. The ballot is merely the ritual through which this decision will be sanctified. Until Kenyans awaken to this reality, until they build a movement that transcends tribal divisions and dismantles the architecture of capitalist plunder, every election will end the same way: with the goose well cooked, the elite feasting, and the masses gnashing their teeth in despair.
The lesson is sobering but unavoidable: salvation will not come from 2027. It will not come from Kalonzo, Karua, Gachagua, Maraga or even Raila. It will only come when the people themselves, stripped of illusions, wrest power from a ruling class that has perfected the art of ruling forever through the charade of democracy.
Okoth Osewe
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