Sifuna: Next political liberator or just a one-hit wonder?

Embattled ODM Secretary General Edwin Sifuna addresses a rally in Kitengela on February 15, 2026. [Peterson Githaiga, Standard]

Since independence, each Kenyan generation has waged its own contest with power. The republic’s founders confronted white colonial rule and, in time, dismantled it. Land that had been alienated from indigenous communities and transferred to settlers on generous terms was reclaimed and redistributed. The post-colonial settlement, however, bore its own contradictions. Constitutional amendments, not least those that entrenched a de jure one-party state, constrained political pluralism even as the trappings of sovereignty were consolidated.