Kenya’s presidential elections have become contests of personalities, political alliances, ethnicity, campaign machinery and promises that are rarely subjected to the discipline of measurable performance. Every five years, presidential candidates travel across the country presenting ambitious visions: millions of jobs, better healthcare, industrialisation, affordable housing, universal water access, improved education, agricultural transformation, infrastructure expansion and economic revival. The electorate listens, debates and eventually votes. But once the election is over, one fundamental question is often forgotten: what exactly did Kenyans vote to have implemented over the next five years?
Kenya needs to change this.
The presidential election should be transformed into a vote on a Five-Year National Development Plan proposed by each presidential candidate and subsequently converted into a legally recognised national development programme upon the election of the President. The winning programme should become the central five-year development mandate of the national government, approved through Parliament and implemented through annual budgets, legislation and government programmes. The President should not simply receive a five-year political mandate; the President should receive a five-year development mandate defined by what was presented to the people before the election.
This would fundamentally change the meaning of presidential elections in Kenya.
The idea is not to create another bureaucratic planning document. Kenya already has national planning and budgeting mechanisms. The Public Finance Management Act provides for an integrated national development planning process as part of the annual budget process and requires planning of national financial and economic priorities over the medium term. What is missing is the direct democratic connection between the national development plan and the presidential vote.
At present, a candidate can make hundreds of promises during a campaign without presenting a coherent, costed and measurable five-year programme. After taking office, the administration can introduce new priorities, rename programmes, abandon previous commitments or redefine success. Citizens are then left with political arguments rather than an objective basis for determining whether the government delivered what it promised.
That is not the strongest form of democratic accountability.
A presidential election should answer two questions simultaneously: Who should govern Kenya? And what should that government be required to accomplish?
The second question deserves far greater attention.
The Constitution already provides a powerful legal foundation for such a model. Article 1 places sovereign power in the people of Kenya, while Article 10 establishes national values and principles of governance including participation of the people, good governance, integrity, transparency and accountability. The President is also constitutionally required to direct and coordinate the functions of ministries and government departments and to report annually to the nation and Parliament on measures taken and progress achieved in fulfilling national values.
The proposed reform would therefore not create an entirely new constitutional philosophy. It would give greater practical meaning to principles that already exist.
The central idea is simple: before a presidential candidate asks Kenyans for their vote, the candidate should be required to present a credible five-year National Development Plan.
That plan should be far more rigorous than the traditional campaign manifesto.
It should identify the country’s major development priorities, specify measurable targets, establish implementation timelines, estimate the financial requirements, identify the responsible ministries and agencies, explain the sources of financing and disclose the assumptions upon which the programme is based. It should state what the candidate intends to accomplish in health, education, agriculture, manufacturing, housing, infrastructure, energy, water, digital transformation, employment, security, public administration and other national priorities.
Most importantly, it should distinguish between what government can realistically deliver and what merely sounds good on a campaign platform.
If a candidate promises one million jobs, Kenyans should know what kind of jobs these are, which sectors are expected to generate them, what public investment is required, what private-sector participation is anticipated and how performance will be measured. If a candidate promises universal healthcare, the plan should identify the financing model, health workforce requirements, infrastructure investments and expected outcomes. If a candidate promises to reduce public debt, the plan should explain how expenditure, revenue, borrowing and economic growth will interact.
This would bring economic realism into presidential politics.
A candidate should not be able to promise everything to everyone without explaining the cost.
The proposal should also establish an independent National Development Plan Review Commission, or assign the responsibility to an appropriately constituted existing institution, to conduct technical assessments of presidential development programmes before the election. The purpose would not be to approve or reject political ideas. Candidates should remain free to propose different visions for the country. The purpose would be to inform voters whether those proposals are legally permissible, financially plausible and technically achievable.
A presidential candidate could therefore promise something ambitious. But the voter would know whether the promise is fully funded, partially funded, dependent on legislation, dependent on private investment or based on assumptions that carry significant fiscal risks.
That information would dramatically improve the quality of democratic choice.
The election would cease to be merely a competition over political messaging and become a competition over competing national development strategies.
Once the election is concluded, the winning programme should be presented to Parliament for enactment as a Five-Year National Development Act. This is where the proposal must be legally disciplined.
The Act should not give the President unlimited authority to spend public money or bypass Parliament. Kenya’s constitutional system deliberately separates executive authority from legislative and financial oversight. Annual expenditure must still be authorised through the constitutional and statutory budget process. The Public Finance Management Act already requires the national budget process to include development planning, determination of national financial and economic priorities, preparation of budget estimates, parliamentary consideration and implementation and evaluation of approved budgets.
The proposed Five-Year National Development Act would therefore sit above individual annual programmes but below the Constitution.
It would provide the strategic framework within which successive annual budgets are prepared.
In practical terms, the Act would say: this is the development programme that the people elected the government to pursue. The annual budget would then determine how much can be spent each year to advance that programme, subject to available revenue, debt sustainability, constitutional requirements and changing economic circumstances.
This distinction is critical.
The Act should not guarantee that every campaign promise will automatically receive funding. Government revenues fluctuate. Economic crises occur. Natural disasters happen. International conditions change. New national security threats emerge. Kenya may experience drought, floods, pandemics or economic shocks that require priorities to be changed.
A sensible system must therefore permit amendments.
But amendments should not be politically convenient exercises undertaken without explanation. Significant changes to the Five-Year National Development Act should require a public explanation, financial analysis, parliamentary scrutiny and, where appropriate, public participation. The government should be required to explain why a commitment approved by voters can no longer be delivered and what alternative priority is being substituted.
This would introduce something desperately needed in Kenyan politics: a cost to breaking a promise.
Today, a government can make a promise during an election and later explain its failure in political language. Under a development-mandate system, failure would have to be measured against a publicly documented programme.
That would also transform the President’s annual State of the Nation reporting obligation. Rather than presenting broad political achievements, the government could be required to publish an annual National Development Performance Report showing the status of every major commitment in the five-year plan.
The report could classify commitments as completed, on schedule, delayed, underfunded, substantially revised or abandoned.
Kenyans would finally have a national government scorecard.
Imagine the effect on political accountability. At the end of the first year, citizens could see whether the government had achieved its first-year targets. At the end of the third year, they could assess whether major programmes were progressing. By the fifth year, the country would possess a documented record of what was promised, what was budgeted, what was implemented and what was actually achieved.
The next presidential election would then become, in part, an examination of the previous government’s performance.
The opposition would have something more powerful than accusations. It would have evidence.
The government would have something more credible than propaganda. It would have measurable results.
And the voter would have something better than political slogans. The voter would have a record.
Such a system could also improve the quality of presidential candidates. If candidates know that their proposed development plans will be examined, costed and placed before the public, there will be less room for extravagant promises. Political parties would be compelled to invest more seriously in economists, policy experts, sector specialists, legal experts and implementation professionals.
The presidential contest would consequently become more policy-driven.
This is particularly important because the President occupies a unique position in Kenya’s governance structure. The Constitution gives the President significant responsibilities in directing and coordinating ministries and government departments. The person elected to State House therefore exercises enormous influence over the country’s economic and social direction. It is reasonable, therefore, that the electorate should have a clear understanding of the programme on which that authority is being granted.
There is also a broader democratic argument.
Elections should not be reduced to the question of which individual is more popular. Democracy is ultimately about the exercise of sovereign power by citizens. If citizens are sovereign, then their vote should have consequences beyond determining officeholders. Their vote should determine the broad policy and development direction of the government they elect.
This does not mean that the President becomes an employee executing a rigid five-year checklist. Governance requires judgement. It requires adaptation. It requires responding to circumstances that cannot be predicted during an election campaign.
But there is a fundamental difference between flexibility in implementation and freedom to abandon the electoral mandate.
The President should have discretion over how legitimate objectives are achieved. The President should not have unlimited discretion over whether the objectives promised to the electorate matter.
That is the principle that should guide the proposed reform.
The Five-Year National Development Act should therefore contain measurable national outcomes rather than prescribing every administrative decision. It should identify strategic priorities and expected results while leaving the executive reasonable flexibility in choosing implementation methods.
Parliament would retain its constitutional role in legislation, taxation, appropriation and oversight. The Auditor-General would continue to examine public expenditure. Oversight institutions would retain their mandates. Courts would remain available where government action violates the Constitution or the law. Citizens would retain their right to participate in public affairs and access public information.
The proposal would strengthen, rather than weaken, these institutions.
It would also provide continuity across government.
One of Kenya’s persistent development problems is the disruption of programmes whenever political administrations change priorities. Projects are launched, suspended, renamed or replaced. Policies are announced with great publicity and then quietly disappear. Public resources are consumed in starting new initiatives while existing ones remain incomplete.
A five-year national development mandate would encourage greater institutional continuity.
A new administration would still be entitled to introduce a different vision after winning an election. But it would first need to present that vision to the people. The democratic choice would occur at the ballot box rather than through administrative improvisation after taking office.
That is precisely where the reform belongs: at the ballot box.
Kenya does not need another manifesto culture in which politicians make promises that are forgotten after votes are counted. It needs a system in which presidential promises become measurable public commitments.
The reform could begin without necessarily requiring a wholesale constitutional amendment. Parliament could examine the existing constitutional and statutory framework and develop legislation establishing the process, provided such legislation remains consistent with the Constitution. If particular aspects require constitutional change, then the amendment process should be followed openly and lawfully.
The ultimate objective should be straightforward.
Every five years, Kenyans should receive competing national development programmes. Those programmes should be publicly debated, independently assessed and presented transparently. The electorate should choose the programme it considers most credible, together with the candidate responsible for delivering it. Parliament should translate the winning programme into a legally recognised five-year framework. Annual budgets should progressively implement it. The government should report annually against measurable targets. Parliament and citizens should scrutinise performance. At the end of the five years, the electorate should judge the results.
That would create a new democratic chain:
National Plan → Public Debate → Presidential Election → Parliamentary Enactment → Annual Budget → Implementation → Measurement → Public Accountability → Next Election.
This is a more mature conception of democracy.
Kenya should stop treating presidential elections as five-year permissions to govern and start treating them as five-year contracts for national development.
The President should be elected not merely because a candidate speaks convincingly, mobilises a powerful coalition or promises a better future. The President should be elected because Kenyans have examined a credible national programme and decided: this is the direction in which we want our country to go.
The country does not need fewer political promises.
It needs promises that can be costed, legislated, measured and judged.
The ballot should therefore do more than choose the occupant of State House.
It should choose Kenya’s five-year development direction.