How a County's Six Elected Offices Fit Together, and Where They Collide
One county contains two governments and two legislatures.
National government operates inside it. County government operates inside it. The National Assembly and the Senate legislate for the first. The county assembly legislates for the second. Six elected offices sit across that structure, and none of them reports to any of the others.
That is the design. The collisions that follow are not a malfunction of it.
The two governments, plainly
County government is the governor, the deputy governor and the county executive committee on the executive side, and the MCAs in the county assembly on the legislative side. Its jurisdiction is the devolved functions: county health, county roads, water, markets, agriculture, pre-primary education and the rest.
National government is everything not devolved: security, education beyond the early years, national health facilities, the courts, taxation, immigration, national infrastructure. Its elected representatives from your county are the MPs, the woman representative and the senator, plus the president everyone votes for.
Once you hold those two lists apart, most of the confusion dissolves.
Who can remove whom
Almost nobody, which is the point.
A governor cannot remove an MCA. An MCA cannot remove a governor alone, but a county assembly can impeach one, and the Senate then decides.
A governor cannot sack a deputy governor, because they were elected together.
An MP cannot remove anybody in the county. A senator cannot remove a governor except as one vote in the chamber that hears an impeachment.
Voters remove all of them, on the same day, every five years.
Related: why the removal route usually fails.
The three collisions that happen in every county
The first is the MP and the MCA over local projects. Both are asked by the same residents for the same things. One controls national appropriation and historically a constituency fund; the other approves the county budget that actually pays for ward-level services. Neither can do the other's job, and both are judged by voters on the same visible outcomes.
The second is the senator and the governor. One controls county money, the other is constitutionally tasked with overseeing it. Where they belong to rival camps inside the county, oversight looks like sabotage from one side and obstruction from the other.
Related: both sides of that argument.
The third is the woman representative and the MPs, who share a chamber, a county and a set of constituents, and who are frequently competing for the same subregional base ahead of the next cycle.
None of the three is caused by bad character. All three are caused by overlapping electorates with non-overlapping powers.
Where they are actually forced to cooperate
Three places, and they are where a resident gets leverage.
County planning and budgeting requires public participation by law. Every one of the six offices has an interest in what comes out of it, and any of them can be invited into it.
County and national functions meet at the same physical facility more often than the legal division suggests. A road that becomes a county road at a junction, a health centre that refers patients to a national hospital, a market beside a national highway.
And intergovernmental forums exist precisely because the two levels have to agree on money and function transfers.
The function test, and how to use it
When two officeholders blame each other for the same failure, one of them is usually right.
So run the test. Ask which level of government owns the function. If the answer is county, the accountable people are the governor and your MCA, and the document that proves it is the county budget. If the answer is national, the accountable people are your MP, your woman representative and the ministry, and the document is the national appropriation.
Then ask the second question, which is the one that ends most arguments. Was money budgeted for this, and was it spent. The Auditor-General publishes reports at both levels, and a budget line either exists or it does not.
Related: the ballot-by-ballot version of the same map.
What to do with this before 2027
Take the single most persistent complaint in your ward. One thing, chosen because everybody agrees about it.
Work out which level of government owns it. Find the budget line, or establish that there is none. Then take that finding, in writing, to the two officeholders it actually belongs to.
Do this once, properly, and you will know more about who is doing their job in your county than any campaign will tell you between now and 10 August 2027.
Related: what the oversight seat is for.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does an MCA report to the governor?
No. MCAs sit in the county assembly, which is the legislature, and the governor heads the county executive. They are separately elected and neither can remove the other. The county assembly approves the governor's budget and executive appointments, and can move an impeachment which the Senate then hears.
Why do MPs and MCAs fight over the same projects?
Because they share constituents and are judged on the same visible outcomes while holding different powers. An MP works on national law and national appropriation. An MCA approves the county budget that funds ward-level services. Residents bring the same request to both, and only one of them owns the function.
How do I know which office is responsible for a problem?
Work out whether the function is devolved or national. Devolved functions such as county roads, water, markets and county health belong to the governor and the county assembly. National functions such as policing, secondary education and taxation belong to national government and the members of Parliament your county elects.