As we mark the third anniversary of the 2022 General Elections today, Kenya’s governance is fragile and rudderless. Citizens have perfected mass strategies to cancel misgovernance, yet grapple for ways of connecting and charting a way past their disappointment with the current leadership. Navigating the current turbulence will require new state systems to listen and interact with public concerns. A new opportunity has emerged in the Public Participation Bill (2025) currently before the National Assembly.
Thirteen years ago, I joined fifty Kenyans to reflect on the future of Kenya fifty years after independence. I argued then, and it remains true. The right to speak, be heard, and see actions taken in line with what matters to us has always driven Kenya’s freedom movements. From the 1920s to today, it remains central to the crisis we face.
Politics has always been about competing ideas. Citizens usually respond in three ways: they complain quietly, they disrupt to be heard, or when they trust the system, they engage constructively, shape policy and offer oversight. Without inclusive, real-time and responsive systems, leaders remain powerless to shift widespread public frustration.
Despite Article 1 of our constitution, public participation in Kenya has weakened over the past decade. When citizens stormed Parliament for 9 minutes last year, it was less of a surprise than a loud sign of deep public mistrust. The protest wasn’t just about the unpopular Finance Bill. It reflected a profound frustration with a leadership that had chosen to ignore their constitutional duty to listen to the public. With two years left to the next General Elections, the Kenya Kwanza administration is not out of the raging storm yet.
This week, the Justice, Human Rights and Constitutional Affairs State Department in the Office of the Attorney General launched consultations on the Public Participation Bill (2025). Designed well, the bill may offer a timely opportunity to institutionalise inclusive, transparent, and accountable public engagement, which is now necessary to rebuild trust. The bill seeks to establish a minimum legal framework for public participation, vest oversight in a Public Participation Register and County Directors and create standards for public participation plans, reports, and feedback mechanisms. It will require state agencies to inform, engage and listen to the views of all stakeholders and especially women, youth, persons with disabilities, minorities, and marginalised groups.
It encourages not just physical meetings but online submissions through a diverse range of social media platforms and applications. Public authorities will be legally required to provide civic education, publish proposals, report on participation outcomes, and demonstrate how public input was used. There will be fines for non-compliance and dispute resolution mechanisms.
The bill could consciously adopt the language of co-creation, not merely consultation. It is not information that is missing today, but co-ownership. The bill must frame its intent within the constitutional framework of protecting the freedom of expression, assembly, and association during participation processes. Early and continuous engagement, not just consultation at the end of decision-making, is crucial. There must be more clarity around the use of artificial intelligence and open-source technology.
Gen Z activist and coder Rose Njeri, who was wrongfully arrested in May, needs to be at the centre of designing this bill. She and many others like her might share how natural language processing tools are capable of translating complex “policy-ese” in simple documents, chatbots that answer questions 24/7, how to reach and educate millions of young people, analyse thousands of public feedback submissions and create mass feedback loops. Sound familiar?
Despite the absence of nane nane public protests yesterday, HMS Kenya remains in its most excellent governance storm to date. Violins on the upper deck may have prevented the captain from hearing the approaching iceberg, but they didn’t protect the Titanic from an epic end. The great fault-line is not the lack of information or even citizens’ trust in the state. It is the absence of a multi-layered state with modern capacities to interact with its citizens. We squander the promise of this bill and a new sunrise at our peril.
Irũngũ Houghton is Amnesty International Kenya Executive Director and writes in his personal capacity. Email: [email protected]