Gas cylinders, day-old chicks, mattresses and loads of cash were among the inducements openly on offer to voters during the just-concluded Ol Kalou by-election.
Unimpeded by secrecy, embarrassment or even fear of the law, the spectacle merely confirmed a pattern that had already been established in previous by-elections in Malava and Mbeere North, where the purchase of votes appeared to have become part of the campaign strategy rather than a violation of electoral law.
These transactions took place in broad daylight, often before television cameras, with the confidence of people who no longer expect either legal consequences or public condemnation. Those who would oppose them encouraged the voters to take what they could but ‘vote wisely’. This advice has become Kenya’s civic theology, which in reality legitimises vote-buying.
For years, Kenyans have spoken about corruption as though it were something done by leaders to citizens. Politicians stole public money. Civil servants manipulated procurement. Tenderpreneurs looted the Treasury. Regulators looked the other way. The citizen appeared only as the victim.
Regardless of their outcomes, the by-elections suggest that the citizen has been recruited into the corruption economy. When a vote is exchanged for a gas cylinder or a food hamper, the politician is not merely buying political support. He is privatising citizenship. The relationship between citizen and State ceases to be one of rights and responsibilities. It becomes a commercial transaction in which democratic choice is reduced to a retail purchase.
Vote-buying is the opening chapter in the theft of public resources. The voter becomes the first investor in corruption. Like every investor, the politician expects a return. The cost of the gas cylinder is eventually recovered through budgeted corruption and abandoned public services.
Corruption begins when the first vote is bought at the campaign rally, not when the first dodgy bank transfer is authorised at the Treasury.
If the corruption of citizens marks one side of Kenya’s integrity crisis, the law has quietly narrowed the other. Just as elections are becoming marketplaces, our understanding of ethics is becoming increasingly transactional. Parliament has quietly narrowed the country’s legal understanding of public ethics. In repealing the Public Officer Ethics Act and replacing it with the Conflict of Interest Act last year, Kenya strengthened one pillar of its anti-corruption architecture while weakening another. Parliament essentially rewrote another part of Kenya’s integrity architecture. Granted, the Conflict of Interest Act, 2025 is, in many respects, a stronger anti-corruption law than the statute it replaces.
Kenya needed a modern legal framework to confront sophisticated forms of self-dealing, influence peddling, hidden financial interests and abuse of office. The new law introduced clearer disclosure obligations, mandatory recusal and stronger sanctions against officials who place private interests ahead of public duty.
The repealed Public Officer Ethics Act was built upon a broader proposition: that public office is a public trust. It spoke not only about conflicts of interest but also about professionalism, diligence, courtesy, impartiality and accountability. It sought to cultivate an ethical public service rather than merely regulate corrupt transactions.
The earlier law aspired to cultivate character, while the new one regulates conflict. The new statute asks whether or not a public officer has a private interest capable of influencing an official decision.
Increasingly, Kenya is approaching integrity as a matter of compliance rather than conscience. If declarations have been filed, we tick a box; if procedures have been followed and interests disclosed, we tick another box. Hardly do we ask the older question: what kind of public culture are we nurturing?
Last week, Kenya launched the State of Openness report, to enable the country tick more boxes on government transparency.
A society does not decay only when leaders become corrupt. It also decays when citizens come to regard public office primarily as a source of private benefit and elections become auctions.
Poverty may explain why many voters accept inducements. But understanding economic desperation is not the same as accepting its political consequences. Vote buying exploits immediate needs to secure long-term political consent. It converts economic vulnerability into democratic surrender. The politician purchases five years of power with one afternoon of generosity.
Kenya’s integrity crisis therefore extends beyond Parliament, procurement offices and courtrooms. It has entered the campaign trail, the marketplace and the village square. It is no longer merely about the corruption of government. It is about the corruption of the democratic relationship between the governed and those who govern.
Kenya’s Constitution rightly locates sovereignty in the people. If the people are sovereign, politicians are every day saying that they can buy the people.
The greatest corruption is not always the theft of public money. Sometimes it is the theft of the public imagination — until a sovereign citizen looks at a vote not as an act of conscience but as an item for sale.
Corruption begins when public officials sell public resources. It reaches its most dangerous stage when citizens begin selling sovereignty itself. The nation is not lost when politicians buy votes. It is lost when voters cease to believe that their vote is worth more than what it can buy.
The writer is a board member of the Kenya Human Rights Commission and writes in his individual capacity. @kwamchetsi; [email protected]
