UDA tops list of most preferred political parties in new Infotrak survey
Babu Owino is the next Luo kingpin – Infotrak
According to Infotrak polls President Ruto and his UDA party are in firm control of the government and Kenyans would re-elect them again. Also, Babu Owino according to the same polls is the new king of the Luos.
Nobody will pay any attention to such polls and even those who do the polls know it. The bigger issue for the country is the expectation and requirement in the Kenyan constitution on issues and government decisions affecting the lives of Kenyans.
The CS for Finance John Mbadi has just issued a public statement that he has made the 2026/27 budget proposals available to the public so that he can get feedback from Kenyans before the budget is finalized and sent to parliament.
That is the attempt by the government to conform to constitutional requirements because they know the budget is going to be a hot item for them just one year before the elections.
The problem with CS John Mbadi’s appeal for public participation in the next budget is that it is a private communication he expects from Kenyans to respond or make suggestions to him after reading the budget online but how do we know that the CS will even bothers to read any such suggestions from Kenyans.
How will John Mbadi respond to any suggestions and issues raised by Kenyans? How about the CS ignores every suggestion to him and just claims there has been public participation and everything is fine.
Public participation determining government policies cannot be turned into private communications between public office holders and Kenyan citizens. Public participation has to be PUBLIC, not PRIVATE.
If it is an issue on the budget, then let the politicians present the budget at the constituency level and ask Kenyans for better ideas and integrate all that into the budget. And the same should apply to all other government plans, so Kenyans can be involved all the way.
At the end of the day, the biggest public participation in Kenyan politics is the elections because that is when Kenyans decide who will run their government.
Right now, William Ruto has thrown the opposition into a complete mess. Today, they are all talking about Singapore. Tomorrow Ruto will change the topic, and they will jump there. In between, they have talked about Cyrus Jirongo for a week now. Other than that, they have nothing else to talk about, which is good for the country. Let them keep it that way.
The budget issue is big for the Ruto government because the last time the opposition pretended to exist was when the Gen Z activists were on the ground in protests against the 2004/25 budget and it became a national nightmare for President Ruto. The Kenyan opposition which had no involvement in those protests behaved as if they were leading those battles and were the new leaders of the Gen Z movement.
Since then, the opposition leaders have been unable to revive the Gen Z protests on the streets because they lack leadership and have no connection to the young Kenyans fighting for a better country for themselves.
Now the opposition is in prayers that come June 2026, there is another battle between Gen Z Kenyans and the Ruto government so that Rigathi Gachagua and Kalonzo Musyoka can once again pretend to be leading a mass protest against the Ruto government.
The best thing for the country is for the Ruto government to put forward a good budget for 2026/27 that meets the needs of Kenyans and is good for the country.
