Return of the Dragon: Uhuru can put an end to cartel politics but will he?

Opposition principals during an engagement with IEBC chairman Erastus Ethekon at  Anniversary tower offices in Nairobi on January 28 2026. [Collins Oduor, Standard]

Kenya’s is morphing into an expansively confounding political mosaic. Nothing seems to make sense anymore, yet there is so much sense in the unfolding quagmire. These happenings are not random noises and political dramas. Power is reengineering itself in what is essentially a post-ideological political environment. Ideology is dead, or at the very best in the sickbay. Elite realignment is at work, as are cartel power politics.  

But there is also the return of President Uhuru Kenyatta, and efforts to resurrect Azimio, an entity Kenyans thought was dead. Can the return of Uhuru stem the and derail the tide of President Ruto’s rising cartel democracy? Can Uhuru steady the Opposition as a probable government in waiting, or will Kenya go the whole cartel democratic hog, into negotiated stagnation?