Disclosure: This article draws on an earlier version first published on Brookings on March 30, 2026, and has been adapted for republication.
Editor’s Note: This case study is part of a project on the state of democracy in Africa.
Money has always been central to electoral politics, but in Kenya it has become one of the clearest tests of democratic resilience. Campaign finance determines far more than how candidates print posters or move around the country. It influences who gets nominated, who remains competitive, who gets heard, and ultimately whose interests may shape public power after elections.
That is why campaign finance should not be treated as a minor administrative issue. It goes to the heart of democratic accountability.
Across the world, elections are becoming more expensive. Candidates require financing for party primaries, campaign teams, manifesto development, political messaging, advertising, logistics, voter mobilization, and the constant strategic adjustments that come with competitive campaigns. But rising costs do more than make politics expensive. They narrow political opportunity. Those without deep pockets or wealthy backers are often locked out before the contest even begins. Women, young people, and marginalized groups are especially affected.
In that sense, campaign finance is never just about money. It is about power.
When campaign funding is opaque, poorly regulated, or excessively dependent on private wealth, democracy can begin to tilt away from citizens and toward financiers. The danger is straightforward: those who fund political campaigns may gain louder influence than voters themselves. That can distort electoral competition, weaken public trust, and create incentives for politicians to treat public office not as a mandate to serve, but as an investment to recover.
Kenya knows this problem well. Since the reintroduction of multiparty politics in the 1990s, the relationship between money, business interests, and political power has remained a recurring concern. Campaign finance has long been linked to corruption, patronage, and abuse of office. This is precisely why the framers of the 2010 Constitution recognized the need for regulation. Article 88(4)(i) gives the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) the mandate to regulate how much money may be spent by or on behalf of candidates and political parties in elections. That constitutional promise was later given legislative expression through the Election Campaign Financing Act (ECFA) of 2013.
Yet the existence of law on paper has not translated into effective implementation.
The ECFA was supposed to begin operating in time for the 2017 elections, but Parliament postponed its application to 2022. It was then suspended again. In effect, Kenya has had the legal basis for campaign finance regulation without the actual enforcement framework needed to make it meaningful. This gap has allowed campaign financing to remain one of the least transparent and least accountable areas of electoral politics.
The politics of this delay is telling. In 2021, the IEBC drafted campaign finance regulations, but the National Assembly declined to approve them. Parliament defended its position on procedural grounds, arguing that the IEBC had not properly sought approval before publishing the regulations. Civil society actors, however, viewed the resistance differently: as a political effort by legislators to shield campaign finance practices from scrutiny. That tension eventually moved to the courts.
The High Court’s intervention marked an important turning point. Following litigation by civil society activists, the court ruled that key provisions of the ECFA dealing with spending limits and disclosure requirements did not require parliamentary approval, though they did require appropriate public participation. This mattered because it removed one of the most significant roadblocks that had repeatedly been used to frustrate campaign finance oversight.
With some of the legal uncertainty resolved, the focus has now shifted from whether regulation is possible to whether it will actually be implemented before the 2027 elections.
That question is now politically urgent. The IEBC has drafted the Election Campaign Financing (Amendment) Bill 2024, which seeks to remove earlier bottlenecks and strengthen disclosure and spending controls. If Parliament approves the proposed reforms and the IEBC moves forward with regulations through public participation, Kenya could enter the 2027 election cycle with an operational campaign finance regime for the first time in years.
That would be a significant step, but it would not be enough on its own.
Kenya’s campaign finance challenge is not merely legal; it is institutional and political. Rules matter, but so do incentives. Politicians often benefit from weak oversight. Parliament itself has previously played a role in delaying implementation. In such a context, reform depends not only on legislative text, but on whether institutions are willing and able to enforce transparency against powerful interests.
There is also a broader democratic issue at stake. Campaign finance reform is not only about capping expenditure or requiring disclosure forms. It is about restoring fairness to competition and rebuilding trust in electoral outcomes. When citizens believe that public office is captured by those who can spend the most or conceal the most, faith in democratic participation deteriorates. The result is not merely flawed elections, but weakened democratic legitimacy.
That is why public financing also matters. Kenya’s Political Parties Act established the Political Parties Fund, which allocates public money to qualifying political parties based on their electoral performance. In principle, such a system can reduce dependence on private money and broaden political participation. The law also bars parties from receiving funds from foreign governments, except for technical assistance approved by the Registrar of Political Parties. These provisions reflect an effort to limit undue influence and strengthen institutional integrity. But again, the effectiveness of such measures depends on implementation, oversight, and political will.
Reform, then, should be approached through a wider lens.
First, Kenya needs enforceable expenditure ceilings and credible disclosure requirements. Without both, campaign finance remains too easy to manipulate.
Second, disclosure must be timely and accessible. Information that arrives too late or in inaccessible form does little for public accountability.
Third, public participation must be taken seriously. Campaign finance rules affect not only candidates and parties, but citizens’ right to fair representation. The public should not be treated as an afterthought in designing regulatory frameworks.
Fourth, institutions responsible for oversight must be protected from political interference. The IEBC cannot regulate campaign finance effectively if its authority is continually delayed, contested, or weakened by political actors who benefit from opacity.
Finally, reform must be tied to a larger democratic vision. The purpose of campaign finance regulation is not to burden political competition, but to make it fairer, cleaner, and more accountable.
Kenya’s democratic resilience has often depended on whether institutions can adapt to repeated pressure without collapsing into impunity. Campaign finance is one of the clearest places where that test is now visible. If money continues to dominate elections without meaningful oversight, democratic accountability will remain compromised from the start. But if Kenya succeeds in making campaign finance more transparent and enforceable ahead of 2027, it could strengthen not only electoral integrity, but the broader credibility of democratic competition itself.
This is why campaign finance reform matters so much. It is not simply about who spends what. It is about whether democracy remains accountable to citizens or increasingly bends toward those best able to fund, influence, and capture it.
About the Authors
Oscar M. Otele is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, University of Nairobi.
Karuti Kanyinga is a Research Professor at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi.
Winnie Mitullah is a Research Professor at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Nairobi.
