Is the Ballot the Solution?

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By Kevin Kogo


Is the Ballot the Solution?


Daniel Moi is dead. He’s been dead for five years. He died peacefully, surrounded by family and friends, his final years a golden sunset of great-grandchildren’s visits, state-of-the-art doctors, and honorary awards.  


Unlike his victims—bodies dumped, maimed, rotting in thickets and riverbanks, broken by unlawful detentions, trumped-up charges, and torture chambers—Moi slipped away smiling. Retired by the ballot to his vast estates, he faded silently into the night, untouched by his past: 24 years of absolute terror.  


Then came Emilio Mwai Kibaki and his Rainbow Coalition, promising to save a drowning nation. Kenyans roared into 2003, hungry for change. But within 100 days, the cracks showed. Scandals. Corruption. The Coalition MoU collapsed. Tribalism festered. Authoritarianism slithered back—exiles, enforced disappearances, media raids, extrajudicial killings.  


Kenyans, refusing a refurbished KANU, voted Kibaki out in 2007.  


Then chaos.  


The ECK fumbled. Power blackouts. Kibaki declared winner, sworn in under cover of darkness. Ethnic violence exploded. Militias armed, funded. Homes torched. 1,300 plus dead. 600,000 displaced. Billions in ashes.  


And the suits? They sat in boardrooms, shook hands, carved up a coalition government—the largest cabinet in Kenya’s history—grabbed titles, state cars, fat salaries, then turned to the people and said: Peace and stability above all else.  


We buried our dead. Rebuilt from rubble. Were fed fairy tales—compensation, a better Kenya, a new electoral body.  


Kibaki, like Moi, finished his term. Retired silently. Zero accountability. Zero consequences.  


Then Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto. A new constitution. Devolved government. Bicameral Parliament. A new dawn!  


But the script stayed the same.  


Cronies got fat. Protesters got bullets. Campaigns never ended. Promises rotted. Debts ballooned. ICC witnesses vanished. Corruption doubled. Extrajudicial killings got publicly defended by politicians. Rogue officers enforced abductions in broad daylight.  


We waited for an election. It came. It was nullified. Streets burned. Blood spilled. A repeat election—billions wasted. Opposition boycotted. A mock swearing-in. Marches. Death.  


And the suits? Back in boardrooms. Handshakes. Positions carved up. Fat salaries. Peace and stability, Kenyans. Know your place.  


See the pattern? The deceit? How a handful of men have rigged the system to keep us at each other’s throats—killing, being killed, robbed blind—while they sit in resorts, deciding our fate, lecturing us on the sanctity of the constitution.  


Since repealing Section 2A, we’ve had eight general elections. Each one followed by blood. Chaos. Death. Destruction. And each time, the same plastic resolution—handshakes, dialogues, commissions, headlines. Peace and stability! they preach, as they decide for us what’s best.  


Every government since has violated the constitution, looted public coffers, buried us in debt, silenced the media, abducted, tortured, and murdered citizens. Exiled activists. Committed crimes against man and God.  


And when we protest? When we demand answers? They turn the guns on us. Maim. Kill. To remind us: This is a democracy. Only the ballot changes governments.  


All while they stuff their pockets, fund propaganda machines, weaponize tribalism, keep us in permanent campaign mode—every day on rooftops, every Sunday at harambees.  


So I ask:  


What happens if they lose in 2027?  

They retire to mansions. Feast on Nyama Choma. Travel the world. Farm. Preach. Write memoirs. Spend evenings with grandchildren—while we choke on the wreckage they left behind, watching the new government become the same monster in a fresh coat of paint.  


What happens if they win in 2027?  

More handshakes. More opposition bought off. More roads built as monuments to their paper legacy. And us? Broken. Whispering: Let him finish and go. Raising children who’ll taste bullets and teargas as this snake slithers on unchanged for sixty damn years.  


They’ve gamed the system. Ignored court orders. Bought voters. Rebranded corruption. Committed crimes against humanity and walked away clean.  


Moi’s been gone twenty-three years. The men he taught his style of politics now rule. And they’re teaching others too.  


They’ve turned the ballot into a loop.  


And the train keeps running.  


The same old train.  


Again.  


And again.  


And again.  

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