OSEN: The dangerous rise of camp politics and ethnic mobilisation

There is no doubt that Kenya’s democratic space has widened in recent years. The freer flow of information has made it easier for citizens to participate directly in the affairs that shape their lives, especially politics.

But any keen observer should be concerned by the state of our political discourse, particularly as the 2027 election approaches.

Our country is suffering from hyperpartisanship—a style of politics in which every issue is forced through the lens of camps, grudges, electoral calculation and, shamefully though perhaps not surprisingly, ethnic mobilisation.

As the presidential contest draws closer, that pathology is becoming more pronounced. The result is not merely a louder political culture. It is the steady destruction of serious public-policy discussion.

In a healthy democracy, citizens can disagree fiercely about policy while still respecting facts, trade-offs and institutional process. In Kenya today, that is increasingly not what happens. Hyperpartisanship has made public-policy discussions shallow, misdirected and intensely subjective.

Facts are cherry-picked or buried. Technical questions are turned into loyalty tests. Complex proposals are reduced to slogans. Outright lies and misinformation now circulate faster than sober analysis, especially when political actors see an opportunity to weaponise public anger.

Take the controversy over the proposed Adani-linked arrangement at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. There were legitimate questions to ask about transparency, procurement, public value and sovereign control.

Yet the national conversation often swung between blind outrage and blind defensiveness, leaving too little room for a serious discussion about Kenya’s infrastructure deficit and how major transport assets should be modernised.

Even where reports laid out the proposal in detail, the central issues were procedural integrity and deal structure—not the cartoonish talking points that came to dominate the public square.

The same pattern is visible in the debate over a proposed Ebola containment facility in Kenya for Americans exposed to the virus. This is a matter that should be discussed in terms of law, biosecurity, public-health capacity, reciprocity and national interest. Instead, it quickly became entangled in shallow political signalling.

The reality is more complicated. Kenyan officials had already entered into a framework in 2020 under President Uhuru Kenyatta, and they have maintained that any arrangement must comply with national law and public health safeguards.

At the same time, international health experts have raised practical and ethical concerns about preparedness, patient care and the design of such a facility. That is exactly the kind of issue that demands clear facts and calm judgment—not reflexive outrage or performative politics.

Perhaps the clearest example is the debate around the Finance Bill 2026, fuel prices and taxation. There are valid reasons for citizens to scrutinise tax proposals during a period of economic strain.

But scrutiny is not the same thing as political hyperventilation. In recent weeks, the public argument has often been clouded by recycled outrage, exaggerated claims and misinformation amplified by actors nursing hangovers from the post-2024 protest mood while already calculating for 2027.

Fuel prices, in particular, illustrate how complex policy questions are flattened into simplistic narratives. Fact-based analysis shows a more complicated picture than the loudest slogans suggest: pump prices are shaped not only by taxes and levies, but also by landed costs, exchange rates, logistics, margins and subsidies.

When leaders and agitators reduce all of that to emotionally convenient falsehoods, the country loses its ability to debate policy pragmatically.

Even more revealing was the recent exchange between Treasury CS John Mbadi and Embakasi East MP Babu Owino before the parliamentary Budget committee chaired by Alego Usonga MP Sam Atandi.

For days, sections of the political class had pushed sweeping claims about fuel taxation and supply, including the suggestion that Kenya’s imports were insulated from disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz because cargo can also be sourced through markets such as India.

Mbadi’s response laid out the simpler, harder truth: even when fuel is procured through alternative routes or refiners, global conflict still raises landed costs, freight costs, insurance premiums and supply risks across the market. Kenya may diversify sourcing, but it cannot exempt itself from global conditions.

That should have been an ordinary lesson in economic interdependence. Instead, it became another partisan skirmish. Yet this is precisely the standard citizens should demand from those with serious political ambitions, especially members of Parliament: study the subject, master the facts and then criticise the authorities from a position of knowledge rather than applause-seeking ignorance.

This problem is no longer confined to the political class. It has spread into the broader public, including among millennials and Gen Z, groups often celebrated as hyper-informed, educated and digitally savvy.

Yet many have absorbed the same partisan habits wholesale. Every policy disagreement is interpreted through a political script, and biased framing frequently pushes reason aside. It is no surprise, then, that online debate has become toxic, abusive and openly tribal in ways that should unsettle anyone who cares about national cohesion.

Too often, these conversations appeal to impulse and identity rather than the pragmatic spirit required to build a nation that is just, democratic and committed to shared prosperity.

This is the real danger of hyperpartisanship in Kenya. It does not merely divide voters; it degrades national reasoning. It crowds out honest policy discussion and replaces it with noise, suspicion, propaganda and incitement.

A country cannot solve its tax burden, public-health risks, infrastructure needs or cost-of-living pressures through slogans and manufactured outrage.

As 2027 approaches, Kenya urgently needs a political culture capable of separating evidence from emotion and debate from manipulation.

If every issue is treated as campaign ammunition, the election will not simply polarise the country—it will leave the country increasingly unable to think clearly about its own future.