Of usawa ni sawa, endless campaigns and the 2027 budget policy statement

When IEBC announces that the official campaign window is 10 weeks, politicos tell us they haven’t started campaigning; they are just meeting the people. [Philip Muasya, Standard]

We still have 41 weeks to go but any visitor to Kenya would think our August 2027 election is happening in the next week or so.  As we long for the time when, first, elections aren’t an event that closes the country down over an extended period, and second, we have a “between elections” life beyond permanent campaigns, you also get the feeling that Kenya Kwanza’s 215 weeks in office have been a lifetime.  There is something about how we do things that doesn’t lend itself to stable, long-term nation and state building.