Broad based government must deliver a public bargain

Political cooperation can be a responsible choice in a divided country. Leaders who disagree on much can still work together on public services, economic pressures and institutional reform. President William Ruto should not be criticised merely for seeking a wider governing conversation. The more demanding question is what the public receives from that cooperation and how it can tell whether the arrangement is working.

A broad based government earns legitimacy through a public bargain: clear commitments, measurable progress and institutions free to question failure. It cannot rely indefinitely on the spectacle of former rivals sharing a platform. Reconciliation among leaders may create an opportunity to govern better. It is not, by itself, proof that ordinary people are better governed.

That distinction should concern supporters of the administration as much as its critics. If cooperation is useful, it should be possible to explain its benefits without asking citizens to suspend judgment. If parts of the arrangement are failing, identifying them early protects the larger case for cooperation. Loyalty that refuses to notice a problem leaves the government less prepared to solve it.

Begin with the promises already made

Reconciliation among leaders is not, by itself, proof that people are better governed.

There is a public reference point. In the president’s remarks at the 7 March 2025 signing of the Kenya Kwanza–ODM framework, the commitments included addressing living costs and youth unemployment, strengthening devolution, protecting peaceful assembly, improving debt transparency and respecting judicial decisions. Those remarks establish stated ambitions, not evidence that the ambitions have been fulfilled.

They nevertheless give citizens something more substantial to assess than the distribution of political positions. The government and its partners should return to those commitments and publish an implementation account. It should identify the policy decisions taken, the institutions responsible and the evidence of results. Where a commitment remains incomplete, the report should explain the obstacle and the next action.

The account should distinguish activity from achievement. Holding a meeting on youth employment is an activity. Establishing whether a programme creates durable opportunities requires further evidence. Announcing cooperation on devolution is an activity. Resolving a specific administrative or financing problem is a different kind of result. A credible report should make those differences visible rather than group everything under a heading called progress.

It should also distinguish the framework’s contribution from work the government would have undertaken anyway. Not every public project can reasonably be credited to a political agreement. The partners should explain where cooperation changed a decision, unlocked a reform or improved implementation. That would make the case more precise and reduce the temptation to claim every favourable development as its product.

Choose a small number of tests that matter

A useful public scorecard need not contain hundreds of indicators. It should begin with a manageable set of outcomes linked to the promises made. For each, it should state the starting point, target, reporting period and source of evidence. Definitions should remain stable so that changes over time mean something. If a measure is revised, the reason should be disclosed.

On employment, for example, the distinction between applications, training places, temporary work and sustained employment matters. On public services, spending more does not necessarily establish that access or quality improved. On household pressure, a favourable aggregate measure may coexist with continuing difficulty for particular groups. The government should explain those limitations rather than treat them as inconvenient objections.

This column does not assign numerical scores to those areas without a complete current evidence base. It proposes how a defensible assessment should be made. A political alliance should not be declared a success or failure by inventing precision. The appropriate demand is that the responsible institutions publish the information needed for citizens and independent analysts to reach informed judgments.

The scorecard should include failures as well as achievements. A report that records only completed items is a brochure. A serious account identifies missed targets, explains why they were missed and states what will change. A government confident in its direction should be capable of acknowledging that some instruments are not producing the intended result.

Cooperation must leave room for scrutiny

The strongest concern about a broad political arrangement is that it can weaken the incentives to challenge executive decisions. If prominent rivals become partners, citizens may fear that parliamentary debate will narrow and difficult questions will be treated as threats to unity. That concern cannot be answered simply by insisting that the leaders involved have good intentions.

The answer must be institutional. Committees should examine spending and administration on the evidence before them. Members should be able to raise problems affecting their constituents without being told that criticism undermines a larger political understanding. Public agencies should respond to audit questions regardless of which party’s representative asks them. Cooperation should make decisions possible while leaving their quality open to examination.

There is no contradiction in a government partner supporting a programme and demanding that it be managed properly. Indeed, that combination may be more useful than either automatic opposition or automatic applause. A partner who identifies a preventable failure before it becomes a crisis contributes to effective government. Treating that person as disloyal encourages silence at precisely the wrong moment.

The president can shape this culture through his own response to criticism. When an ally raises a documented concern, the response should address the concern. When an opponent identifies a real problem, its origin should not make it less real. The public standard should be whether the argument is supported and the remedy useful, not whether the speaker has earned a place inside the arrangement.

Rights are part of the bargain

Economic delivery cannot be used to postpone questions about rights and the rule of law indefinitely. A promise of future prosperity is not a substitute for fair treatment in the present. The credibility of political cooperation depends partly on whether citizens who reject it remain able to speak, organise and seek lawful remedies without being treated as enemies of national progress.

The framework’s own language makes that connection relevant. Its ambitions were not confined to projects and employment; they also concerned public freedoms and constitutional government. The administration should therefore report on the institutional measures intended to uphold those commitments, with careful distinctions between allegations, investigations, decisions and implementation. A political declaration should not be used to imply that an unresolved individual case has been settled.

This approach would strengthen the government’s argument for stability. Stability is more durable when people believe there are legitimate ways to challenge decisions and correct abuse. A quiet political surface can conceal unresolved resentment if formal channels do not work. Protecting those channels is part of governing, not an optional concession to critics.

Supporters of the administration should be especially willing to insist on that point. A government’s achievements are easier to defend when they do not require excusing conduct that conflicts with its own stated principles. The standard one accepts for a favoured president may later be used by a government one opposes. Institutions deserve protection beyond the immediate political advantage.

Explain what compromise actually costs

No serious political cooperation is free of compromise. Different parties bring priorities, constituencies and competing views of policy. Reaching an agreement may require changing a proposal, delaying another or allocating responsibility differently. The public can understand that. What breeds distrust is presenting every compromise as a unanimous discovery of the perfect answer.

The partners should explain their substantive choices. Which policy differences have been resolved? Which remain? What procedures apply when they disagree? A clear account allows citizens to judge the arrangement as a method of governing rather than as a private understanding whose contents emerge only during a dispute. It also gives members and supporters a more honest explanation of what their leaders have accepted.

There are limits to what can be settled through party bargaining. Public appointments should be judged by competence and the requirements of the office. Resources must serve the public rather than become evidence that one camp negotiated a better share. A constituency’s access to services should not depend on whether its representative is enthusiastic about the political arrangement.

This is where the language of inclusion needs care. Bringing more leaders into a room can widen political participation at the top. It does not automatically include people who lack influence, money or party connections. A public bargain must be assessed by its effects beyond that room. Otherwise, inclusion risks becoming a description of who was invited to negotiate, rather than who benefits from government.

Give the public a regular reckoning

The government and its partners should publish a concise quarterly account tied to the agreed commitments. It should link to the underlying records and identify the responsible institutions. Parliament, journalists and civil society should then be able to test it. That process would create a regular opportunity to correct the course rather than leaving assessment to the next burst of campaign rhetoric.

A practical first edition could identify a few priority commitments, establish their current position and set the next milestones. It should avoid retrospective claims that cannot be substantiated. Where reliable information is missing, the report should say how and when it will be produced. Admitting a measurement gap is the beginning of fixing it; disguising the gap as success prevents improvement.

The partners should also explain how citizens can raise a concern and receive an answer. Public participation should be more than an invitation to attend a celebration of decisions already made. People affected by a policy need a route to show where it is failing. A broad political arrangement should have greater capacity to hear such feedback, not a broader network for dismissing it.

Ruto’s administration has an opportunity to make cooperation mean something more than political insulation. It can use a wider base to carry out difficult but defensible reforms, improve delivery and reduce the incentives for permanent confrontation. To do so, it must accept the scrutiny that allows the public to distinguish a useful compromise from an arrangement that primarily protects its participants.

The case for broad based government should therefore be made with an open record. Show what was promised, what changed, who benefited and what remains unresolved. Let partners question one another without turning every disagreement into a crisis. A public bargain that survives that examination would be worth defending. A bargain that cannot be examined asks too much trust from the people in whose name it governs.