Captured House: Parliament fails to rein in growing Executive power

For the third time in a row, President William Ruto has literally driven a coach and four through the National Assembly. The Finance Bill 2026 sailed through Parliament with an overwhelming majority of the cast vote, even as more than half of the MPs absconded.

They did not abstain from voting, they stayed away. The 122 against 40 victory in a hotly acrimonious environment speaks to a House that is devoid of capacity for debate, but one also unsure of itself. A whooping 187 MPs were absent. This is mind boggling. Where were they? This was a very crucial day. The financial life of the Kenyan nation over the next one year was being determined. 

Suna East MP Junet Mohamed, who is also technically the Minority Leader in the Assembly, was spot on. He reminded Members about their power. “Members need to understand the powers they have. The reason we are considering this Bill is because you are the ones with the authority to amend it.” 

Despite this authority, and despite the obvious knowledge on the part of MPs of this authority, 54 per cent of the House was absent. How do we explain this? MPs are trapped between the rock that is the citizen, and the hard place that is the national Executive. In their heart of hearts, they know that the Bill is bad for the citizen. 

If they could have it their way, these absentees would shoot down the Bill. Yet if they do so, they risk the Executive. The people’s representatives are afraid of both the people and the Executive. Accordingly, half of the Legislature is absent during the crucial vote that will determine public spending for the next year.

The bottom-line is the wider relevance of Kenya’s Parliament. Who is it serving? The 13th House since independence fills up the citizen with a massive sense of loss and despair. More than half of the National Assembly lacks the courage to make decisions because they could rub the Executive the wrong way. Of the remaining 45 per cent of the House, 75 per cent bend to the will of the Executive. For, in the circumstances, the only logical conclusion is that the 122 vote was imposed by the Executive. 

The extrapolation is frightful. Out of 349 Membe_rs of the National Assembly, only 40 have the courage to stand with Kenyans. This is 11 per cent of the House. This House is the perfect example of a Legislature that is hostage to the Executive. Liberal democracy expects that there will be separation of powers between the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary. Each of these arms of Government will do its work independently. The Executive may lobby Parliament, but it cannot use threats, inducements, or other undue influence to have it its way through Parliament. And it must keep its hands off the Judiciary altogether. 

This notion is as old as political thought itself. It has been developed through time and space; from Aristotle of the ancient world, to John Locke and Baron Montesquieu in modern times. Well governed societies embrace Montesquieu’s idea of governance on separation of powers and checks and balances in government.

Separation of powers

Article 1 of the Constitution of Kenya (2010), makes Kenya one such a country, in principle. Both the principle of separation of powers and the doctrine of checks and balances are explicitly stated. 

Yet Kenya’s 13th Parliament’s voting on three consecutive Finance Bills over the period 2024–2026 leaves little doubt that this assembly considers itself a clearing house of the Executive. At the very best, it is a waiting room. The slanted and often lowly and crass quality of debate attests to this. Where ideas should be floated and debated, Kenya’s Parliament discusses people. And it does so without seeking leave and with noisy insolence. It lives way below the bar that was set decades ago by the assertive 3rd and 4th Parliaments. 

Those parliaments produced figures like Martin Shikuku, Jean Marie Seroney, George Anyona, JM Kariuki, and Chelagat Mutai. Their speeches in the House still resonate, five decades later. The paradox is that those were strong parliaments, operating under a weak constitutional framework. Conversely, the 13th Parliament is a weak legislature, operating under a strong constitutional framework. The challenge is not the Constitution. It is the calibre of the individuals in the House. 

What did Kenyans elect? A compromised entity. If Parliament is compromised, where does democratic energy go? This question increasingly confronts Kenyans. History suggests watchdog energy relocates to the public space.

The people take over. Article 1 of the Constitution anticipates this: people exercise sovereignty directly or through elected leaders.
If Parliament behaves the way the 13th Parliament is doing, it is not surprising that the people will want to claim back the power they have donated to this House. That was why in June 2024, Kenyan youth raided Parliament, to protest about abuse of the power donated to the Assembly. 

As we write, citizens are planning to remind both Parliament and the Executive of their servant responsibility. They plan to demonstrate this week, in memory of those who fell in June 2024 and last June. The demos are reminders to both branches that they are still failing the people. The Executive is threatening to meet them with more violence.

The demos are, accordingly, a vote of no confidence in both Parliament and the Executive. In a sense, citizens are still signalling taking back of their donated powers. When the people reclaim their sovereign power, both the Legislature and the Executive become irrelevant.  

Kenya’s restoration of multiparty democracy is a reminder of this fact. The removal of Section 2A on December 10, 1991 did not come from Parliament. By 1990, Parliament was so tied to the Executive that it was irrelevant in national life. The push for change came from lawyers, clergy, university students and teachers, journalists and ordinary citizens.

When MPs sensed the irreversible tide, they rushed to join the train. Is the 13th Parliament repeating history, as it serves not the people but the urges of the Executive?

Kenyans in social media say it all. They are pained not just because this Parliament is weak, but because it is supposed to be the people’s watchman. In that regard, it is expected to check the excesses of the Executive. In gone times, Parliament checked the Kenyatta regime, through the Moi state, to the Kibaki Executive. But from the Uhuru regime, it began backsliding. It has reached an all-time low under William Ruto. 

Abdication of duty by Kenya’s Parliament represents a broken constitutional promise. Those who were of age will recall that the 2010 Constitutional moment was marketed as a turning point in Kenya’s history. It was meant to end the imperial presidency. Kenya seemed headed towards liberty in the Liberal Democracy canon, as envisaged by Enlightenment thinkers of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Today, however, power seems to be pooled around the Executive, once again. But it seems not just to concentrate around the Executive, but more around the President, as an individual. To put it plainly, a one man rule. Social media debates suggest that Kenyans are aware of this constitutional transmutation. They are aware that Parliament is not just annexed to the Executive, or the Presidency, but that it has surrendered the people’s sovereignty to an individual. He now holds Parliament and the whole country hostage. 

Citizens know that Parliamentarians depend on the President for survival. They also know that political parties are weak and patronage is the primary currency of politics. The MP has become a beggar of roads, bursaries, jobs and sundry favours from State House. Kenya’s watchdog is, accordingly, dependent on the person to be watched. Parliament cannot be self-driven in the circumstances. It can only be a puppet entity, with State House as the master puppeteer. 

The rain began beating us with our choice of MPs. An MP must be a courageous individual who can confront the Presidency with the truth. Kenya may have a good Constitution, but it cannot manufacture courage; it only creates an arena for it. A lily-livered MP will follow the Executive or hide during crucial votes. As civil society heroes of the 1990s and Gen-Zs plan protests, Kenyans must ask why they keep cycling back into this space.

Crisis of followership

Blaming MPs is the easier part of this conversation. The harder part is confronting the reality that Parliament is only a reflection of who we are. This is the uncomfortable truth that we would want to run away from. Ali Mazrui famously said that Africa suffers not just from a crisis of leadership, but also from a crisis of followership.

What did Mazrui mean? You see, the parliamentary candidate offers money to voters. Even if he does not offer, the voters demand it. That is why they throng political rallies, especially those by the State and its agents. The voter accepts money. Both understand that the transaction is not just a gift. It is an investment and the return on the investment is a vote. 

The future leader has bribed us by paying for our vote in advance. After he gets into office, it is his turn to be bribed. The national Executive waits with bags of inducements. If those in power lack money, they will steal it or accept bribes elsewhere to fund the cycle. Accordingly, we condemn corruption in theory, but in practice we are part of the network.

Kenyans are in a sphere where many no longer believe elections are about choosing leaders. That they are opportunities to extract money from politicians. Have they become cynical? Most likely. Politicians will steal, anyway, once elected. Hence, we might as well get something small from them before they go. The candidate who bribes best is elected..When he gets to Parliament, it is his turn to be bribed. He is available for the Executive to deal with howsoever it may wish. The conundrum is about a difficult choice before the citizens. Do they choose uncertain long-term public goods over clear short-term private gain? 

The way out of troublesome finance Bills rests on the weighing scales of citizenship and clientelism. Placed on these scales, Kenyans will decide whether they are citizens or clients of the political class. A client is focused on temporary selfish gain. The citizen asks about overall public welfare. The vibes in diverse spaces on the national landscape point towards citizenship. The political class could be running out of luck, straight into a tidal wave that could begin not with the 2026 Finance Bill protests, but the June 2027 Finance debate. What is happening today might turn out to be only a dress rehearsal, an inoculation against June–August 2027.