Kenya’s election transparency bill heads to court as protests loom

A constitutional petition, civic ultimatums and street protest threats are converging on President Ruto as Kenya’s most consequential electoral legislation in a decade awaits his signature

By James Mwangi

A constitutional petition was filed at the Milimani High Court yesterday seeking to block Parliament from forwarding the Elections (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 2024, to President William Ruto for assent, as opposition to the legislation’s removal of mandatory livestreaming of election results hardened across legal, civic and political circles.

The petition, filed by lawyer John Muremi Njomo, targets Clause 22 of the bill, which would repeal Section 39 of the Elections Act — the provision that compels the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission to establish and maintain a mechanism for livestreaming results as they are announced at polling stations. Njomo is seeking conservatory orders restraining the National Assembly and Senate from presenting the bill for presidential assent in any form that removes the livestreaming obligation. He has further asked the court to certify the matter as raising substantial constitutional questions under Article 165(4), paving the way for the Chief Justice to constitute a bench of no fewer than three judges to hear the dispute. The Attorney General, the National Assembly and the Senate are named as respondents, with the IEBC listed as an interested party.

The legal challenge arrives as the political temperature around the bill reaches a level that senior figures in the ruling establishment can no longer ignore. VOCAL Africa chief executive Hussein Khalid issued a direct warning to the President this week. “Making livestreaming optional is not a technical adjustment. It is the removal of a public right to watch democracy happen in real time,” Khalid said, threatening nationwide protests under Article 37 of the Constitution — which guarantees the right to peaceful assembly — if Ruto signs the bill into law. That threat, from an organisation with deep networks in Kenya’s civic movement, is not one State House can afford to dismiss.

Civic youth organisation Taifa Mpya has taken a more constitutionally measured approach, calling on the President to invoke Article 115 of the Constitution, which empowers him to decline assent and refer the bill back to Parliament with specific reservations. The organisation wants the mandatory livestreaming provision restored before the legislation proceeds further. The argument is precise and powerful: transparency in the transmission of results is not a discretionary convenience. It is the mechanism through which ordinary Kenyans verify that their votes have been counted and reported honestly.

The bill, Senate Bill No. 29 of 2024, was sponsored jointly by National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah and Minority Leader Junet Mohamed. It purports to implement recommendations arising from the National Dialogue Committee process and introduces several amendments to the Elections Act, 2011. That it carries cross-party sponsorship has done little to soften the backlash. If anything, critics argue that bipartisan support for a measure that reduces electoral accountability is precisely the kind of elite consensus that Kenyans should treat with the deepest suspicion.

The political arithmetic of 2027 is already reshaping every calculation in Nairobi. A mounting opposition bloc, led by former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, former Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka and Linda Mwananchi leader Edwin Sifuna, is rapidly consolidating into the most credible electoral challenge Ruto has faced since taking office. Sifuna’s emergence as a nationally significant figure is particularly consequential. He commands the fierce loyalty of a young, urban and politically awakened constituency that stretches across county boundaries and demographic lines. Should Gachagua’s organisational networks in the Mount Kenya region, Kalonzo’s deep-rooted support in the Ukambani bloc and Sifuna’s grip on the youth vote cohere into a unified front, the combined electoral weight would present a formidable threat to Ruto’s hopes of a second term. Political analysts increasingly speak of a scenario in which a united opposition does not merely compete in August 2027 — it wins, sending the President home after a single term.

That prospect concentrates the mind. It also explains why the Elections (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 2024, is being read not merely as an administrative measure but as a political manoeuvre. In a contest this competitive, the rules governing how votes are counted and transmitted are not neutral. They are the battlefield. And any reduction in the public’s ability to monitor results in real time will be interpreted — rightly or wrongly — as preparation for a result that cannot withstand scrutiny.

Kenya’s memory of disputed elections is not historical — it is lived. The violence of 2007 and 2008 killed more than 1,300 people and displaced hundreds of thousands. The contested results of 2017 produced a Supreme Court annulment unprecedented in African electoral history. Every transparency reform introduced since then was built on the foundation of that painful experience. Livestreaming results from polling stations was not a technical innovation. It was a democratic reckoning — a public commitment that the darkness in which fraud had historically operated would be illuminated.

Njomo’s petition specifically asks the court to preserve the existing legal position, allowing the IEBC to continue its planning, procurement and preparations for the August 10, 2027, General Election on the basis that the livestreaming requirement remains in force. That is a practical as well as a constitutional argument. Electoral infrastructure takes years to build. Dismantling or rendering optional a critical accountability mechanism less than two years before a general election introduces uncertainty that serves no legitimate public interest.

President Ruto now carries a decision whose consequences extend far beyond the technical provisions of a single bill. He can assent and absorb a political and civic storm that will follow him deep into the election cycle, handing a consolidating and energised opposition the most potent mobilising grievance available — that his government legislated away the public’s right to watch votes being counted. Or he can refer the bill back under Article 115, demonstrating that his administration understands the difference between electoral administration and electoral accountability.

A government confident in its record enters an election demanding maximum transparency, not minimum scrutiny. The President holds the pen, the courts are watching, the streets are being organised, and Kenya — all of it — is paying very close attention.

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