By Frank Bray
Just some weeks ago, Kenyans watched a democratic circus in Tanzania — as the ruling party sabotaged all its opponents and contested against itself in so-called free and fair elections, held in 29th October 2025. The president-elect’s speech echoed her appreciation for the support of all Tanzanians and reassured the country that those jeopardizing its peace would face justice.
Many Kenyans stood by their neighbours in Tanzania during the ensuing turmoil, where many lives were lost. The streets were allegedly fed with the blood of civilians, who were “subverting” the will of Tanzania’s people. The internet went off. A door closed — so the mother could deal with internal issues internally.
When Kenyans peeped in to see what was happening behind closed doors in their neighbours’ country, they saw a glimpse of heartless brutality. Some sources claimed that bodies were strewn up against roads and in mortuaries, lifeless. At least that’s what was circulating in Kenya’s newsrooms by the time real footage of the Tanzanians’ ordeal leaked into the public.
Little did Kenyans know they were also in for it: that their neighbour’s ordeal was just a grandiose display of what their own political system harboured, sometimes in secret: democratic sabotage.
Just a few days ago, Kenyans watched as by-elections were held on 27 November 2025 across six constituencies, only for the exercise to end in turmoil, dissatisfaction, and distrust.
A YouTube video from Plug TV titled ‘CHAOS ERUPT: Mbeere North on LOCKDOWN …’ showed one Sonko, from Lucky Summer, confessing to allegedly being sent by Stanley Livondo to bribe Soi people to divert votes from the opposition candidate Seth Panyako and vote instead in support of a UDA candidate. Locals roughed him up badly; pictures showed cuts on his face.
On the other hand, Rigathi Gachagua cited that there had been plans to plant goons at certain polling stations in order to cause chaos and give the police a reason to disrupt the process in the name of restoring order. Then votes would be planted and everything else done “as normal.” It tells us not only that we still have a long way to go in terms of democracy, but that electoral misconduct isn’t just a Tanzanian thing. It’s an East African nuance.
Reports have spread around the country of so many other discrepancies that plagued the exercise; yet the official results shall stand firm until the next election, when something similar might happen again.
“Unless you change the structure … we’ll see the same thing that happened in Tanzania happening in Kenya in 2027,” a prophet of Revelation Wisdom Ministries on YouTube remarked.
Now, while everyone runs around urging the youth to register as voters for the coming elections, nobody has really looked into how to ensure elections will be credible and reliable. Evidently there are forces at work within the East African region. Forces invested in subverting the will of the people and maintaining a facade of democracy.
The set system seems to insist on its own will rather than the will of the people. Our politics have birthed equivalents of demons as opposed to true revolutionaries. Maybe we should sit down as a whole and decide what to do about this “democracy” thing.
Maybe we should stop electing politicians and start electing leaders. Because right now our politics are not a game of service and responsibility. They’re all just a game of power — a game of political seats. A game of thrones.
