Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi says the continued formation of political parties in Kenya is a retrogressive move that should be discarded as it frustrates unity and growth of democracy in the country. 

“We must be pragmatic. We have experimented for too long without success. We already have too many political parties. Creation of more outfits does not add value at all to our body politic. It is now over 30 years since we embraced multi-party politics. The experiment of too many parties has failed us terribly. We need to change our way of managing politics,” Mudavadi argues.  

Speaking to People Daily on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, from the Dominican Republic in Central America where he is on an official visit, Mudavadi who is also the Cabinet Secretary for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs stated that time had come for the Kenyans to canvas their politics and development agenda via fewer ideology-based political parties as opposed to regional ethnicity-driven ensembles. 

He vouched for a reduction in the number of political parties to limit them to not more than five, arguing that Kenya made significant progress in the 1992-97 election cycle when the country had four main political parties after the re-introduction of plural politics in Kenya upon the scrapping of Section 2 (A) of the Constitution that limited the nation to a one-party state. 

The parties were the then ruling Kenya African National Union (Kanu) headed by then President Daniel Moi, Ford Kenya of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, Ford Asili headed by Kenneth Matiba and the Democratic Party of Kenya of Mwai Kibaki. 

Kenya has 91 registered political parties at the moment. Mudavadi’s sentiments come in the wake of reports that the immediate former Deputy President, Rigathi Gachagua, who was impeached by the Senate last year, will be launching his political party this week. 

However, Mudavadi argues that whereas the formation of political parties is a blanket constitutional provision, that right has been abused and has weakened democracy in Kenya. 

“We have to reflect on the usefulness of many parties and how they have impacted our democracy and unity as a nation. If you ask me: Are we united as we should be? The answer is No. The existence of many parties has divided Kenya more along tribal lines. That is a scar on our young democracy which we must strive to discard by all means,’ Mudavadi said. 

He said the move by his former party, the Amani National Congress (ANC) and President William Ruto’s United Democratic Alliance (UDA) was a move in the right direction and should be emulated by the leadership of other parties.  

Mudavadi said the coming together of the outfits had placed the cornerstone for stability, national unity and cohesion in the country, a dicey move he says should be promoted within Kenya’s political space. 

“That is the way to go. We must stop pretending that many political parties have promoted democracy in Kenya. It has not. We must be ready to confront this bare truth and find a solution to it. We should not continue to bury our heads in the sand. I am not in any way calling for the scrapping of the current constitutional clause on the formation of political parties. I am only appealing to our national conscience. We need fewer parties, not more. The parties we have at the moment have destroyed nationalism, they have promoted ethnic divisions and hatred among our people and undermined democracy, governance and national unity,” he said. 

The one-time vice-president observed that the majority of the political parties today are ethnic enclaves without a vision for the nation or a development agenda beyond their home sub-counties. 

“It is disheartening that our friends in the Opposition are coalescing around tribes. They are mobilising themselves under the umbrella of tribes as their main agenda, devoid of any vision for the country. A quick look around the world will show you that the most developed countries in the world have only two to four active political parties. It is the case in all Western democracies, in Asia or the Americas. Even large countries with huge populations like India, China, Brazil, Indonesia, Canada and the United States do not have as many parties as we do in Kenya,” he said. 

Mudavadi alluded to his then ANC party and UDA teaming up ahead of the 2022 General Election as part of the strategies that helped reduce ethnic tensions in the countdown to and after the poll. 

He said the coming together of the two parties at the famous Earthquake of January 2022 at the Bomas of Kenya had very specific objectives that, apart from the immediate target of winning the election, it focused on rebuilding the economy, restoring peace by uniting the country and dismantling ethnic divisions.