There is a cruel arithmetic at the heart of Luhya politics, one that has repeated itself with the relentless precision of a Greek tragedy for the better part of six decades. The community is Kenya's second-largest ethnic group, sprawling across Kakamega, Bungoma, Vihiga, Busia, and parts of Trans Nzoia. It
By Patrick Iraki History, as Kenya's politicians have repeatedly refused to learn, whispers not. It shouts. And if you listen carefully enough, the story of Deputy President Kithure Kindiki- the soft-spoken law professor from Tharaka Nithi who now occupies the country's second-highest office- sounds unsettlingly familiar. We have been here before.
Ruto turned Kenya's largest opposition party into a coalition partner without an election, a merger, or a single fulfilled promise. When the MOU expires on 7 March 2026, ODM's journey from opposition to Ruto's coalition partner becomes official. By Peninah Wangeci Political Strategist and Commentator Stop asking whether ODM will leave Ruto’s government
By Patrick Iraki The mantle that Raila Odinga wrested from Jaramogi’s anointed successor has, by the cruel arithmetic of mortality, found its way back to the Mulembe nation but the young man upon whose shoulders it now rests must understand that a mantle is not a throne. There is, in the oral
By Patrick Iraki The picture from Addis Ababa tells you everything and nothing. It is the most DISHONEST photograph in Kenyan political history since the Handshake. And I will tell you why. Last week, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed stood between two Kenyan men and smiled for the camera. On his left,
By Patrick Iraki The Luhya are the second-largest ethnic group in Kenya. They have 6.8 million people, 2.9 million potential votes when you count the western diaspora in Nairobi, Nakuru and Mombasa, and precisely zero presidents in sixty-three years of independence. This is not, as the conventional analysis insists, because they
By Patrick Iraki The 2022 presidential election was decided by 233,000 votes. Before August 2027, every strategist in Kenya will be asking: where do you find the margin? The conventional answers— consolidate Mt Kenya, split Western, win Nairobi wider — involve contested spaces where every vote won is a vote taken
What Ruto Can Learn From Kibaki’s First Term Let me tell you something about power. Power does not corrupt men. It reveals them. And what Mwai Kibaki revealed, in those final desperate hours of December 2007, was not a criminal — it was something far more interesting. It was a believer.