Kenya does not lack money, laws, institutions or talented people. What it has lacked is a national government that fears the Constitution more than it fears losing power.

President William Ruto promised a bottom-up economic transformation. What millions of Kenyans have experienced instead is top-down extraction: more taxes, more debt, more expensive public services, more anxiety for businesses and too little accountability when state power is abused. The tragedy is not simply that the government has made mistakes. Every government makes mistakes. The deeper failure is that suffering has repeatedly been treated as a public-relations problem instead of a governing emergency.

The numbers make that failure difficult to decorate. The National Treasury’s Public Debt Management Office reported public debt of KSh12.32 trillion by March 2026, equal to 65.7 per cent of GDP, with KSh1.72 trillion in debt service for the 2024/25 financial year. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights documented 60 deaths during the June-July 2024 anti-Finance Bill demonstrations. Between December 2024 and December 2025, the Commission received 661 complaints involving violations of freedom and security of the person and recorded continuing allegations of abductions, arbitrary detention and torture.

The economy has not delivered the transformation that was promised. KNBS reported that real GDP growth eased to 4.6 per cent in 2025. In 2024, the government celebrated 782,300 new jobs, yet 703,700 of them – about nine out of every ten – came from the informal sector. Informal work is not shameful; it keeps Kenya alive. But when almost all new opportunities lack predictable wages, insurance, pensions and job security, it is dishonest to call the result a jobs revolution.

Healthcare reform has also become a warning about the difference between registration and treatment. SHA requires salaried households to contribute 2.75 per cent of gross pay, subject to a minimum monthly contribution of KSh300. Yet a card, a deduction or a registration message is meaningless if a patient reaches a hospital and treatment is delayed, coverage is unclear or the facility has not been paid. SHA’s own facility payment report for July 2025 to April 2026 shows a broad benefit structure, but also reports that the ten highest-paid counties accounted for 61.69 per cent of payments. Universal healthcare cannot be universal only on a dashboard.

This is why the debate about an Edwin Sifuna-led government in 2027 must be larger than personalities, slogans or political revenge. Kenya needs a government organised around a simple proposition: the Constitution is not an inconvenience placed in the President’s way. It is the President’s job description.

The programme below is ambitious. Some measures can be delivered by an executive circular in 30 days. Others require legislation, budget reallocation, independent institutions or multi-year construction. Not every promise is cheap, and none should be sold as magic. But all are achievable when they are sequenced, costed, subjected to public participation and protected from corruption.

That is precisely what should trouble President Ruto. The comparison exposes an uncomfortable truth: many of Kenya’s crises survive not because solutions are unknown, but because the current political order has chosen different priorities.

Read Also: The Kenya Youth Are Demanding Edwin Sifuna for President

A Constitution-first government

1. Protect every Kenyan life

The first duty of an Edwin Sifuna government would be to restore the value of Kenyan life. No election, protest, police operation or political disagreement should end with a family collecting a body from a mortuary and then spending years begging the state for answers. The right to life in Article 26 of the Constitution must become an operational command to every police station, ministry and security agency.

A Sifuna administration would require independent investigation of every suspicious death involving a state officer within 90 days. Police commanders would carry responsibility for unlawful orders issued under their authority. Body cameras, station custody registers, ballistic tracking, independent post-mortems and rapid preservation of CCTV and telephone evidence would become standard safeguards, not favours offered after public outrage.

Why it is achievable: Kenya does not need a new Constitution to protect life. It already has IPOA, the ODPP, the Internal Affairs Unit, the Witness Protection Agency, the Judiciary and KNCHR. The immediate task is to fund them, protect their independence, impose deadlines, and end political interference. This is primarily a question of command and accountability, not invention.

2. Make the Constitution the government’s daily operating manual

The next government must stop treating constitutional compliance as something to be discussed only after a court strikes down a policy. Within its first 100 days, every ministry, state department and agency should undergo a constitutional compliance review covering appointments, public participation, procurement, use of force, data protection, taxation and respect for devolved functions.

Every Cabinet memorandum should include a signed constitutional and human-rights assessment. Every executive order should be published. Every public officer should understand that loyalty to the President can never replace loyalty to the Republic.

Why it is achievable: The Attorney-General, Kenya Law Reform Commission, Commission on Administrative Justice and existing legal units across government already possess the mandate and professional capacity. A constitutional compliance process requires a presidential directive, common reporting templates, and public disclosure. It is cheaper