Salutary lessons for Kenyans from last week’s mini polls

Depending on one’s political sympathies, last week’s by-elections were either a model of orderly democracy or an exercise doomed from the start.

Cast as a proxy battle between President William Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza coalition and factions allied to his estranged former deputy Rigathi Gachagua, the contests offered less of a test of local loyalties than a snapshot of battlelines drawn between the political elite. 

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