Why Ethnicity Will Still Matter in Kenya's 2027 Election But Not Forever
|Image Courtesy| By Micah Mukhwana Sikuku Ethnicity has shaped Kenya's politics since independence in 1963. From the Kenya African National Union (KANU) era under Jomo Kenyatta to the Daniel arap Moi administration, voting patterns have often reflected ethnic identity as much as policy. Multiparty politics after 1992 further reinforced this trend, as political parties increasingly became ethnic coalitions competing for state power. The 2007 post-election violence, which claimed more than 1,100 lives and displaced over 600,000 people according to the Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence, demonstrated the devastating consequences of ethnic mobilisation. Since then, nearly every presidential election has been characterised by alliances carefully built around regional voting blocs rather than ideology. The 2013 Jubilee Alliance brought together Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, largely uniting significant support from the Kikuyu and Kalenjin communities. While the Constitut...
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