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Police loby teargas to disperse Opposition meeting in Kikuyu on April 11, 2026.[David Gichuru, Standard]
A report by the Kofi Annan Foundation, Electoral Vulnerability Index 2026-2027, warns that Kenya is staring at an 84 percent chance of electoral violence during the 2027 General Election. Indeed, the signs are there, and have been for a while now.
In 2013, South African Judge Johann Kriegler, who chaired the Commission of Inquiry that dissected the horror of 2007/2008 post-election violence, warned that without deep, deliberate reforms to our electoral and legal architecture, the next electoral conflagration would dwarf the one that killed 1300 Kenyans in 2008. Thirteen years later, that warning sounds less cautionary and more like a prophecy.
The evidence is staring us in the face. Opposition rallies are routinely broken up by goons who descend on them with the confidence of men expecting no consequence. Sometimes police officers walk beside them as opposed to against them. Linda Mwananchi teams were recently attacked in Kisumu and Nyahururu. EALA MP Kanini Kega was also attacked in Ol Kalou after a campaign rally. Even church services have not been spared the attention of goons and thugs. Men wielding machetes and clubs move through our streets in broad daylight without bothering to hide their faces.
