How political theatre keeps Kenyans trapped in deception

For more than six decades, the conditions shaping ordinary Kenyans’ lives have followed an agonising trajectory. Poverty is no longer an accidental socioeconomic condition; it has become a permanent space. [Pixabay]

To live through five successive presidential administrations in Kenya—from Jomo Kenyatta’s foundational consolidation and Daniel arap Moi’s monolithic executive dominance, to Mwai Kibaki’s technocratic promises, Uhuru Kenyatta’s debt-fuelled infrastructure cycles and the current regime—is to earn a front-row seat to a masterclass in institutional gaslighting.

For more than six decades, the conditions shaping ordinary Kenyans’ lives have followed an agonising trajectory. Poverty is no longer an accidental socioeconomic condition; it has become a permanent space.

Wealth inequality has widened into an insurmountable gulf, youth unemployment remains a ticking demographic time bomb and the nation’s collective psychological well-being has been battered by unfulfilled promises and systemic corruption.

Yet, as the country approaches its next political cycle, the ruling elite appears to have run out of credible policy solutions. It has weaponised the story of the boy who cried wolf, declaring revolutionary economic turnarounds while playing psychological games with an exhausted populace.

The latest manifestation is the frantic legislative push to pass a Bill banning the electronic live-streaming of presidential election results, plunging the country further into non-transparency.

Whose interests do these legislators serve, if not those of the voters who braved the early-morning cold to give them a mandate? Why does the political leadership turn a deaf ear to citizens’ cries?

The answer lies in a sophisticated, historically blood-stained playbook known as Controlled Political Theatre, or the “Shield and Saviour” manoeuvre.

This game plan rests on a cynical understanding between a failing Executive and a compromised parliamentary majority. When an administration fails to deliver on its promises, it creates an artificial conflict with its own MPs.

Parliament pushes a deeply unpopular, anti-people Bill into the public domain, acting as a lightning rod. Once public fury peaks and threatens the regime, the President steps in as the compassionate, pro-people “Saviour”, refusing to sign the Bill into law and seeking to rescue his plummeting ratings ahead of an election.

Meanwhile, state machinery quietly sponsors proxy actors to approach a compromised Judiciary for conservatory orders, locking the dispute in legal limbo until campaigns intensify.

The script

This script is not new. We saw its devastating consequences during the Finance Bill 2024 controversy.

At the height of the historic, youth-led Gen Z protests, millions of unarmed young Kenyans took to the streets to reject a tax regime that threatened to crush the working poor.

The state responded with structural violence, leading to the deaths of more than 60 young people and the enforced disappearance of hundreds of activists.

This script is not new. We saw its devastating consequences during the Finance Bill 2024 controversy. [Getty Images]

Facing pressure that threatened executive power, the President appeared to bend to public will. In a televised address, he refused to assent to the Bill and returned it to Parliament for a total overhaul—a classic Saviour retreat.

What followed exposed the “Shield and Saviour” trap. Once the streets quietened and the immediate threat to the regime subsided, the state did not abandon its tax targets.

Instead, the same parliamentary majority reintroduced and passed core components of the rejected Finance Bill, piecemeal, under different legislative covers.

The Eco-Levy, higher VAT frameworks and withholding taxes were incorporated into separate statutory instruments and miscellaneous amendment Bills. MPs absorbed the label of anti-people villains while the Executive preserved its public image. The rejection had been a tactical pause, not a moral conversion.

The strategy has parallels elsewhere. In 1996, US President Bill Clinton secured re-election through what became known as “Triangulation”. He allowed a hostile Congress to pass deeply unpopular budget cuts, casting the legislature as the villain.

Clinton then vetoed parts of the bills, presenting himself as a moderate shield protecting the public from Congress while neutralising political opponents and pursuing core corporate policies.

In 2018, Russia faced protests over pension reform that raised the retirement age. The State Duma took the initial heat by passing a harsh version of the Bill. President Vladimir Putin then appeared on national television to soften its terms, rescuing his personal image while ensuring the fiscal measures proceeded.

Whether through the piecemeal resurrection of the Finance Bill or the current push to restrict electronic transmission of votes, the objective remains the same: to keep the poor trapped in economic and political subordination while modern neo-collaborators feed on crumbs from the tables of dynastic privilege.

But the system’s owners are miscalculating the limits of human endurance. Controlled political theatre works only while the audience believes the performance is real.

After five presidencies and repeated versions of the same worsening trap, the theatre is losing its power. Once voters recognise that the wolf’s cry is a coordinated performance between shepherd and pack, the curtains will come down.

We must refuse to participate in performative prayers and national breakfast pageantry. It is time to reject the scripted division between a “good” Executive and a “bad” Parliament, demand uncompromised transparency for every Kenyan and reclaim our independent spaces once and for all.