It came as no surprise to some of us, who have lived through it all before, when William Ruto and his sidekick Rigathi Gachagua began speaking the language of violence and daily inventing scenarios designed to strike fear and anxiety into the general public.

Equally unsurprising was the reported discovery in Rift Valley of leaflets threatening extreme consequences to anyone not voting a certain way. I am sure many people had a sense of déjà vu.

Ruto is heir to the concept of the Nandi Hills Declaration of 1969, which laid claim on behalf of Nandis to all the settlement land in Nandi District and opposed the incursion of non-Kalenjins, especially Kikuyus, into the area.

And it is this attitude that has been at the root of the problems Kenya has had with election violence throughout the past 30 years – all of it with some kind of link to Ruto, all of it divisive and exclusionary, and all of it starting in Rift Valley, from Molo and Burnt Forest in 1992 via Kiambaa in 2007 and now threatening again this year.

So-called ‘ethnic clashes’ began in earnest in 1991, when the push for multi-partyism was gaining ground. Kanu was caught out by a wave of support for the nascent opposition and some of its young followers established a group that was determined to ensure the Independence party was not defeated in the 1992 elections. Youth for Kanu (YK) ’92 was birthed.

Ruto, apparently possessed of the appropriate temperament, quickly became a leading light in an outfit that struck dread into the populace. Well-funded and well-armed, YK’92 was brutal in the terror it inflicted on anyone not toeing the anti-multi-party line. Any such ‘undesirables’ were termed ‘madoadoa’.

The 1998 Akiwumi Commission of Inquiry into the tribal clashes of 1991-2 reported a witness as saying the non-Kalenjin in Rift Valley were threatened with dire consequences if they even talked about multi-partyism. YK’92 operatives were deeply involved in the policing of this.

The report noted that “Paul Kipkemei Murei, a Kalenjin himself, told us that, in or about 1991-11, he heard that the Luo, the Kisii, and the Kikuyu, who were the ‘madoadoa’ because they were perceived to be supporters of multi-partyism or its sympathisers, would be driven away.”

Nearly two decades later, very little had changed. The Waki Commission of Inquiry into the post-election violence of 2007/8 said that several witnesses narrated how the pre-election campaigns in Rift Valley were characterised by tension, with the “Kalenjin saying that, on election-day, they did not want to see ‘madoadoa’.”

In both instances, the threats were curtain-raisers to the extermination of thousands of people and the permanent displacement of hundreds of thousands more. And it is no surprise that a similar scenario is occurring today. For ‘multi-partyism’ in 1992, perhaps substitute ‘Raila Odinga’ in 2022.

In 2007, I was working with Raila Odinga, leader of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and then MP for Kibera, on his autobiography. This meant I was taking nearly verbatim notes at every meeting he attended, including with the ‘Pentagon’, the group he formed with his four closest allies at the time – Joseph Nyagah, Najib Balala, Musalia Mudavadi and William Ruto, with Charity Ngilu also later invited to join.

The Pentagon operated out of offices in a house off Ole Dume Road in Kilimani, Nairobi. It was a buzzing place – leaders and MPs and party officials in and out, meetings and discussions all day every day, young activists planning support activities, IT experts setting up a parallel vote-counting system, diplomats and African leaders visiting, local and international media continually banging at the gate – a million things going on. People were upbeat and confident of an Odinga victory.

That was before December 30, 2007, when, as the chairman of the then Electoral Commission, Samuel Kivuitu, later told his church congregation, “the devil stepped in” and people woke up to find Kibaki had somehow overtaken Raila’s nearly one-million-vote lead in the presidential count and was then secretly sworn in as president under cover of darkness, less than half-an-hour after the fraudulent result had been announced.

Kivuitu later admitted that he had been pressured to announce this result and that he did not really know who had won. Those outraged at the theft took to the streets to vent their displeasure. Violence spread, with the result we all know.

At the Pentagon, a dismayed team sat silently glued to TVs as the ongoing violence was reported by brave news crews. Meeting after meeting was held to discuss how to stop people fighting. Press statement after press statement was drafted at Raila’s direction, condemning the violence and calling for peaceful protest. His colleagues still came in and out, but they came in battered and beaten from visiting the front line of the violence, returning to report to the others what they had heard and seen.

Kivuitu later admitted that he had been pressured to announce this result and that he did not really know who had won. Those outraged at the theft took to the streets to vent their displeasure.

On January 4, French ambassador Elisabeth Barbier arrived to offer her support. She was met by Raila, Ruto and Charity, and the head of the European Union Commission also joined the group. I took notes.

Raila told Barbier that “without fear of contradiction, our stand is unequivocal – we are for dialogue. It is the only way out”. He told her he had confirmed to Gordon Brown (then UK prime minister), Condoleezza Rice (then US secretary of state) and the German and Canadian foreign ministers that he would talk to Kibaki. Charity added, “We need to partner with Kibaki’s people in a true way and we shall see the difference.”

Ruto was apparently not so keen. He had some background he wanted to share. He said, “Rift Valley Province is a very interesting scenario. It has seen the biggest backlash of the outcome. Let me give you a little of the background. For the past five years, the majority have felt this government has worked against them … That is why the people of RVP voted with passion – for him [indicating Raila] and against Kibaki.

“When Raila Odinga became a symbol against Kibaki, there was a lot of passion. Moi could not believe what happened …. The Kibaki group really wanted RVP. He was willing to close his eyes to his differences with Moi. He didn’t succeed.”

The same day, a group from the Pentagon met civil society leaders, who included Muthoni Wanyeki, Mugambi Kiai, Millie Odhiambo and Njeri Kabeberi. The ODM team had Ruto, Charity, Omingo Magara and Oburu Oginga, with Raila joining later. I took notes.

Ruto boastfully repeated to the group what he had told Barbier, with added details: “In RVP, it is an interesting phenomenon. It didn’t start with the announcement of the election. It’s strange. It had built up over time. Kibaki got worked against.

“… Six of us [who have been] elected have cases in court, but there is anger against Kibaki and people said they were going to elect [us] anyway. [The other side thought] you cannot compare William Ruto to Moi. [But] if the people of RVP defied Moi and cornered him [Kibaki], they could not stand in the way of what RVP wanted.

“How could William Ruto contain RVP? [Kibaki’s side thought]. [We went] to Kass FM. It was a phenomenon. They [Kibaki’s side] could not understand [it]. [We] cleared [out] everybody associated with Kibaki. It was more about Kibaki than Raila Odinga.”

These comments by Ruto came two days after the burning of the Kenya Assemblies of God Pentecostal Church in Kiambaa, with 30 women and children, mostly Kikuyus and likely Kibaki supporters, incinerated inside.

Before the fire, rumours of an impending attack on local homes and shops had sent women and children to the church as a place of refuge, while their menfolk remained outside to defend them.

But in an explosion of ethnic violence, hundreds of people, many of them Kalenjin neighbours known to the Kikuyus they now sought to kill, arrived with bows and arrows and sharpened sticks, overwhelming the men trying to protect their families.

When Raila Odinga became a symbol against Kibaki, there was a lot of passion. Moi could not believe what happened …. The Kibaki group really wanted RVP

The mob pelted the church with rocks and then blocked the exits with petrol-soaked mattresses, piled on dried maize leaves from the nearby fields and turned the place into an inferno, pushing back in anyone who tried to escape.

They slashed with machetes the men desperately trying to rescue their families, and chased others into neighbouring fields, where they hacked them to death and chopped them into pieces.

After the church fire had died down, relatives went in to search for their people. None of the blackened corpses, grandmothers and mothers who died holding their children close, was recognisable.

A week later, distraught women were still searching the fields for parts of their husbands, a wife perhaps recognising a dismembered leg by the trousers her husband had been wearing. Police officers had the grim job of picking up the slashed and decomposing human remains and taking them to the mortuary in Eldoret.

The Kiambaa killings led to revenge attacks and no community escaped unscathed, including Kalenjins. Kenyans of different ethnic backgrounds who had lived peaceably side-by-side for generations found themselves at odds with each other. It was the result of their having been incited by people who cared nothing for those forced to kill or be killed, and the incident led directly to Ruto’s being indicted at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

Against this never-to-be-forgotten background of terrible events, the kind of rhetoric about killing that has been recklessly engaged in by Ruto and Gachagua in the run-up to the 2022 elections is nothing if not chilling. It is, in fact, the very definition of incitement.

As everyone knows, the 2007 election dispute was eventually solved through the formation of a coalition government after the intervention of Kofi Annan. ODM’s first meeting with Annan took place at the Serena Hotel on January 23, 2008. At the end of the meeting, Annan said he would meet Kibaki the following day and hopefully get the two leaders to the table for talks as soon as possible.

In the debriefing afterwards, ideas were exchanged among the ODM team, especially over whether now was the time to call off the mass action ODM had supported. Tinderet MP Henry Kosgey reported that people were still angry, especially because Kibaki, despite the ongoing negotiations, had already taken his place in parliament.

In fact, reported Kosgey, “People are going to Sudan to look for guns.” Ruto was unequivocal. “No choice,” he said. “We have to go for guns.”

Wherever there is violence, it seems Ruto’s name features. It began with the infamous YK’92. Then came Kiambaa and Ruto’s trip to The Hague. Soon, witnesses started disappearing or being found murdered. Ruto’s name keeps cropping up in other cases – I won’t name them. And now here he is again, along with his running-mate, making wild accusations and telling implausible stories that can only have an ill intent.

We cannot afford for this kind of violence to continue. Even leaving aside whatever has gone before, those who cannot accomplish their stated aims without stooping so low as to begin setting the stage once again for inter-ethnic violence and killing clearly have no right, ‘God-given’ or otherwise, to be in the business of national leadership.

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Editor’s Note: The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect The Elephant’s editorial stance. The Elephant has offered the Kenya Kwanza campaign an opportunity for response but received none.

It is exactly five years since Chris Msando, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC)’s ICT manager, was brutally killed in mysterious circumstances. Msando was murdered after giving media interviews days before the August 2017 election in which he spelt out in detail the various measures he and his ICT team were taking to prevent technical glitches and rigging during the election.

Then there was a lot of hue and cry for justice, but efforts to investigate and prosecute Msando’s murderers have come to naught; they have yet to be found or prosecuted.  Chances are they will never be found.

At that time, there were attempts to sully Msando’s reputation and cast doubts about his personal integrity. His body was found alongside that of a girlfriend, whose parents are wondering to this day what warranted the death of their 21-year-old daughter. The killings did, however, send a chilling message.

A history of flawed elections

Kenya has held few elections that have been completely free and fair, and which do not carry the threat of violence. Almost every election in the country has resulted in some form of violence, from the so-called “ethnic clashes” in the Rift Valley in the 1990s to the widespread violence of 2007/2008 that left more than a thousand people dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.

After Mwai Kibaki was hurriedly sworn in as president on the evening of 30 December 2007, the late chairman of the now defunct Electoral Commission of Kenya, Samuel Kivuitu, went on record saying that he did not know who really won that election. According to Ken Flottman, an American lawyer who had the opportunity to observe the 2007 elections first-hand, two things contributed significantly to the violence that followed that election: the ban on live broadcasting ordered by the then Internal Security Minister John Michuki and the government’s decision to pull down the media’s reporting of the results.

Since the events of 2007/2008, Kenyans have lived with the fear of a stolen or rigged election resulting in large-scale violence. This fear has made us wary of scrutinising election-related irregularities too closely. We assume that any dispute regarding irregularities, legal or otherwise, will now be resolved in the Supreme Court that was formed after the 2010 constitution was promulgated. The constitution and the various commissions and bodies that it established, including the Supreme Court, are seen as a bulwark against flawed electoral processes.

But are they? In March 2013 the Supreme Court legitimised what many instinctively believed was an election that was ethically, constitutionally and technically flawed, not least because IEBC officials had the gall to announce sometime around midnight during vote-counting that that they would be shutting down the tallying centre because they needed to sleep, only to announce the election results in the early hours of the next morning.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of that election was that the presidential candidates Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto had cases to answer at the International Criminal Court. But this did not deter Kenyans from voting for them. On the contrary, a large number of Kenyans decided that the election would be a “referendum against the ICC”. They even remained silent when the IEBC’s BVR kits failed and manual registers appeared at polling stations. A “green register”, which no one had heard of before, also miraculously made an appearance.

The media at that time had been effectively “silenced” for the sake of “peace” and so did not ask hard questions (such as why the commission was shutting down the tallying centre in the middle of vote-counting). Although the Supreme Court ruled that the election was free and fair, scandals that emerged later regarding the procurement of non-functioning BVR kits and the “Chickengate” scandal involving kickbacks given by a British printing firm (whose directors were prosecuted and jailed in the UK) did raise suspicions about whether the IEBC’s former office-bearers were corrupt. Later, the auditing firm KPMG revealed that the voters’ register may have contained the names of as many as one million dead voters. 

Most disturbingly, the High Court had earlier ruled that it had no jurisdiction to determine the suitability of candidates vying for the presidency as this was the job of the IEBC. So, Chapter Six of the Constitution on integrity and leadership was essentially swept under the carpet. This allowed all manner of shady characters, including Mike Sonko, who was the Jubilee candidate and who was eventually hounded out of office by his own party, to vie for office.

The auditing firm KPMG revealed that the voters’ register may have contained the names of as many as one million dead voters.

In 2017, the public’s trust in the IEBC’s ability to deliver a free, fair and credible election was tested again. Signs that the 2017 election was not going to be free and fair began emerging even before a single vote was cast. The mysterious murder of Msando a week before the election was an ominous sign that things were not going smoothly and transparently. On election day, many of the critical forms 34A and 34B that were used to tally the vote seemed to be missing or had not been transmitted electronically.

The perception that the IEBC had been compromised or was just plain incompetent was strengthened by the IEBC’s own commissioner Roselyn Akombe, who cited various anomalies in how the commission conducted its business after she fled the country and resigned. Some reports also suggested that local and foreign firms that were contracted to manage the electronic transmission of results had dubious reputations. Then, as now, there were many questions being raised about the IT company hired to provide voting technology and services for the elections, and whether the IEBC was really up to the job.

Pegging hopes on the judiciary

The nullification of the August 2017 presidential election results by a majority on the Supreme Court bench renewed hope that the country could resolve electoral disputes and deliver free and fair elections peacefully through the judiciary. The Supreme Court’s decision stunned Kenyans and the world. The Economist called it “an astonishing decision” while the New York Times noted that “the ruling offered a potent display of judicial independence on a continent where courts come under intense pressure from political leaders”. Western and other nations, whose election observers were quick to declare this election free and fair, were caught with their pants down.

The Supreme Court sent an important message to the country’s citizens – that no one, not even the president, is above the law and the constitution. As the then Chief Justice David Maraga stated, “The greatness of any nation lies in its fidelity to the constitution and to the rule of law.” Countries in Africa and elsewhere that had become accustomed to electoral fraud and violent elections could now look to Kenya for inspiration.

The Supreme Court sent an important message to the country’s citizens – that no one, not even the president, is above the law and the constitution.

But the subsequent 26 October 2017 repeat election could hardly pass the test of being free or fair because only one leading presidential candidate – Uhuru Kenyatta – was running. The opposition leader Raila Odinga had urged his supporters to boycott the election (which they did) because the IEBC had still not resolved many of the issues raised in the Supreme Court ruling. It was essentially a one-horse race that led to the election of Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto. Many international observers said that postponing the election with a view to making the electoral process more credible would have been a wiser option, which is what Ghana did prior to its 2016 election.

Lessons from Ghana 

Ghana managed to avert a looming crisis by significantly improving its electoral processes. In the months preceding the 2016 elections, violence broke out during various electoral processes and politicians began using hate speech in their campaigns. However, Ghana managed to have a peaceful election because its Electoral Commission, political leaders and civil society took steps to ensure that the elections were credible.

First, the Electoral Commission took highly visible steps to improve the credibility of the voters’ register by cleaning it up and publishing the list of names online. Second, it made it easier for people to vote; Ghanaians could change their original polling station to one that was near the place where they lived or worked. Third, the National Collation Centre, where the election results were tallied, was made more accessible to the media, civil society and party supporters. Local observers stationed in each of the country’s 275 constituencies could also record the election results. Because the polling station data had become so accessible and transparent, Ghanaians knew the results of the election long before they were announced by the commission. Has the IEBC ensured these processes? The IEBC has allowed the media to set up parallel tallying centres at polling stations but it is not clear whether this is enough to ensure transparency. On the contrary, conflicting figures from the IEBC and the media might ignite tensions in a country where there is already so much mistrust of the electoral body.

Ghana managed to have a peaceful election because its Electoral Commission, political leaders and civil society took steps to ensure that the elections were credible.

Many Kenyans, including Raila Odinga, who has the support of the outgoing Uhuru government, thanks to the famous 2018 “handshake” between him and the president, have stated that they are not convinced that the IEBC can be trusted to conduct a free and fair election this month. A KPMG audit report has revealed weak protections against hacking of the voter database and other lapses and irregularities, including tbe registration of 246,465 dead voters. The audit shows that up to 2 million voters on the 2022 voters’ register may not qualify to vote either because they have invalid IDs or because their details do not match existing records. Nearly 5,000 voters have registered more than once using either their Kenyan IDs or passports. These are astoundingly large numbers that could be subject to manipulation and vote rigging in an electoral contest where there is no overwhelming support for just one candidate.  Even more alarming is the revelation that there are 14 “ghost” IEBC officials who are not returning officers but who have the authority to transfer, delete, truncate or update the voters’ register. One of these mysterious officials has super access to the register and can change it at will.

As various reports emerge of strange goings-on at the commission, including the mysterious arrival in the country of Venezuelans carrying IEBC materials, hopes of a free and fair election are fading fast. The loud and boisterous defence of the IEBC and its commissioners by the leading presidential candidate William Ruto despite such anomalies has led many to suspect that perhaps some commissioners are partisan and might already have been compromised, or that Ruto has information that the rest of us don’t. Moreover, IEBC commissioners whose terms ended or who resigned have not been replaced, and the current chairman, Wafula Chebukati, oversaw a flawed 2017 election inundated with irregularities. Can he be trusted to not repeat the mistakes of 2017? There is also the troubling question of why the IEBC has cleared so many candidates of objectionable or dubious backgrounds. As for the technology, it has failed us twice before. Will it fail again?

The 9 August election will likely be another test for the IEBC, the judiciary and Kenya’s democracy.

Change is coming, we are told. So is freedom. Or maybe freedom is already here? Politicians from both sides of Kenya’s current divide—from both the Azimio La Umoja and Kenya Kwanza alliances—are saying this. From Raila Odinga and William Ruto (the two main presidential rivals) downwards, candidates are insistent that after the elections Kenya will be transformed by an “economic revolution”. In Mombasa, for example, two rival candidates for the governorship each speak of “revolution”, as do other candidates and activists across Kenya. Why is this happening, and what does it mean?

Change is not a new message in Kenyan politics. Since the 1990s national elections have tended to pit political change against continuity. Continuity and stability was President Daniel arap Moi’s consistent offer, change and reform was the demand of those who struggled for multi-partyism and then for the new constitution. Odinga and the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) (including Ruto) promised that “change is coming” in 2007, while President Mwai Kibaki and the Party of National Unity (PNU) said kazi iendelee (let the work continue). In 2013 and 2017, Odinga, again the principal opposition leader, was the champion of change and Uhuruto (remember that word?) were the conjoined faces of continuity.

One of the many discombobulating things about the 2022 elections is that the polarity of the change/continuity contrast was first reversed and has now been eliminated. It was reversed when Ruto, after many years of alliances with dynasties—Moi, Odinga, Kenyatta—suddenly decided that they were a bad thing after all. He built a political message around economic inequality and the need for change that proved resonant; a success that should have been unsurprising, since years of a politics focussed on political reforms have not reduced the socio-economic gulf that runs through Kenyan society. Odinga, meanwhile, found that his rapprochement with Kenyatta had given him a political opportunity, but had also turned him into the candidate of the establishment. As a result, we were treated to the curious spectacle of Odinga, Kenya’s diehard radical, giving a pledge of “administrative continuity, while Ruto, after ten years at the top of government, assumed the guise of the insurgent.

Continuity apparently has its appeal—as past Kenyan elections have shown. But at a time of rapid inflation and economic hardship, its attraction may pall. A recent South Consulting opinion poll showed that a clear majority of respondents (64 per cent) think that the country is headed in the wrong direction and that people’s main concerns are economic (54 per cent identified the ‘High cost of living’ as their major concern). In such circumstances, promising continuity seems like a risky stance.  Sincere or not, Ruto’s campaign—propelled by a cost-of-living crisis that no one quite foresaw last year—has succeeded in dragging the political focus of the campaign onto economics. That is presumably why the Azimio campaign—now energised by the presence of Martha Karua as Odinga’s running mate—has also come to emphasise change, or even “economic liberation”, in recent weeks. Now Kenyan voters face two rival coalitions and presidential candidates, each promising change—and each casting that change as primarily economic.

How plausible these promises of change might be is another matter. At the core of Ruto’s campaign is the Hustler Fund—loans to enable Kenyans to realise their role as entrepreneurs. Opinion polls show that this is a popular promise—and it is true that for many years it has been argued that lack of capital holds back Kenyan farmers and businesspeople.

The Azimio economic promise for change is more diffuse. Odinga too says that change will mean easier access to credit—specifically for women. But the emphasis in the Azimio campaign is national unity and social welfare: better health care; better access to education (or maybe even free secondary and university education), and—the most novel aspect—social protection payments to two million households.

So there are real differences to the promise of change: differences that are about national policy. In terms of political reform it is surely true that—as John Githongo has eloquently explained—these elections are not about anything. But they are, at least potentially, about something—how to make Kenya more economically inclusive, as well as more prosperous. That policy difference has gone along with a reduction in openly ethnic politicking—at least, at the national level. Superficially, campaigns look quite similar to those of recent years: from the conspicuous extravagance of helicopters and huge billboards to the distribution of money to supporters, electoral behaviour seems to have become routinized. But so far there has been far less violence and tension in most of the country than in previous elections. Brazen attempts to mobilize on ethnic lines have become less common, at least in national politics – although at a local level there are still worrying cases of incitement, and there is still ample reason for concern over the danger of violence, particularly as candidates trade accusations about plans to rig the elections.

There are, of course, some serious questions about the affordability and viability of these promises. The Hustler Fund is hardly the first scheme to provide credit—there have been many previous ones, and they all tend to fall over, simply because administering lots of small loans is quite difficult (and can be open to abuse) and default rates tend to be high. Credit, after all, is another word for debt—and not all debts get paid. While the proposed fifty-billion-shilling-Hustler Fund is supposed to be revolving, it will only revolve if people pay back their loans. The bill for “Babacare” however, would also be very high—and that’s quite apart from the cost of the fuel and food subsidies introduced just before the election.

Which of these messages will win out in the context of campaigns that are simultaneously concerned with specific regional issues—the future of the port at the Coast, the implications of Uhuruto’s former alliance in Central and Rift Valley—is difficult to say in an election that is currently too close to call.  However, both campaigns are making promises they may not be able to afford to keep and would likely find it hard to deliver. Voters seem aware of this. Years of unfulfilled manifesto pledges have created something of a credibility deficit for government:  47 per cent of people in the poll mentioned above believed that, whatever the result of elections, there would be no change in Kenya.  Political reform and devolution were not easy to deliver; greater economic equality is likely to prove even more elusive.

While the proposed fifty-billion-shilling-Hustler Fund is supposed to be revolving, it will only revolve if people pay back their loans.

The two principals currently have their eyes on 9 August. But (like politicians elsewhere in the world) they might pause to think whether undeliverable promises may end up increasing the credibility deficit even further—with the longer-term effect of encouraging popular disaffection and undermining the political gains of the last few decades.

But—questions of affordability aside—we should probably celebrate the shift to focus on economic and social issues. Inequality and exclusion are the critical issues of the day and Kenyan politicians are not alone in struggling to offer solutions—as is evident from the political woes of incumbents in many countries. Kenyan elections have a reputation for being heated, controversial and driven by ethnic politics—the classic “ethnic census” election in which communities simply line up behind their communities. This was never really true, but the salience of economic issues in 2022 may finally put that myth to bed.

As noted above, there are still parts of Kenya where ethnic politics are very apparent—and even nationally, it is still possible that a very close and disputed presidential poll will suddenly ignite tensions. Complacency would be a mistake. But this time around, a combination of coalition calculations, the importance of the economy, and the fact that voters are increasingly fed-up of voting for ethnic patrons who don’t deliver, means that ethnicity seems less prominent than it has been in the past. Kenyan voters seem rightly sceptical as to whether “change is coming” in any immediate way—but the tone of these campaigns is a positive development that demonstrates that Kenya’s electorate cannot be taken for granted, and that ethnicity does not trump all other considerations. Maybe change has come?