What Malava, Kasipul and Mbeere North Taught Us About By-Election Day

On 27 November 2025 Kenya held by-elections across a scattering of seats. It was the closest thing to a rehearsal for 2027 the country has had, and it did not go well.

What happened

In Chwele, unknown attackers ambushed the convoy of Trans Nzoia Governor George Natembeya while he campaigned for a DAP-K candidate, leaving people injured and vehicles damaged.

In Manyonje, Butali Ward, a vehicle belonging to DAP-K leader Eugene Wamalwa was set on fire by unidentified attackers.

In Kasipul, two voters died in campaign clashes.

In Malava, armed men raided a candidate's hotel.

In Mbeere North, goons armed with clubs arrived during counting and attempted to storm the Siakago Hall polling station in Siakago town.

Across the Western contests — Malava parliamentary, Chwele and Kisa East ward — reporting described violence, intimidation, voter bribery and allegations of state-backed interference. Turnout was low, with short queues at most stations.

Siaya Governor JameJames Orengocribed what he was seeing as the "goonification" of Kenya's electoral process.

The results, for the record

LeonLeonard Wamuthendek Mbeere North. David Ndakwa took the Malava parliamentary seat. Ahmed Hassan, known as Maalim Hassan, won Banissa. Vincent Kiprono won the Baringo senate seat.

IEBC chair Erastus Ethekon gave a post-election briefing at a stakeholder forum in Nairobi on 8 December 2025, saying the by-elections had exposed both progress and persistent gaps that needed addressing before 2027, and calling on political parties, security actors and the public to adopt a culture of accountability.

The five operational lessons

1. Counting is when the risk peaks. Mbeere North is the clearest case: the attempt on the polling station came during counting, not during voting. An agent's most exposed hour is the one after polls close.

2. A candidate's movements are a target. Two of the incidents involved convoys and vehicles. Route planning is a campaign function, not a driver's improvisation.

3. Low turnout amplifies everything. In a by-election with short queues, a few hundred votes decides the seat, which makes intimidation at three stations a rational strategy for somebody. The same logic applies to a ward race in 2027.

4. Bribery and violence travel together. Reporting on the same by-elections described both. They are two ways of buying the same margin.

5. Agents without a plan are agents without protection. In every one of these incidents there were party agents inside the station whose safety and reporting depended on arrangements somebody should have made in advance and usually had not.

What to build now, for 2027

A named agent for every polling stream, recruited early. Not a list of volunteers who might turn up. Names, ID numbers, phone numbers, station assignments, confirmed. If you do not know which streams are uncovered, you cannot fix it.

A check-in protocol. Every agent reports in at opening, at close, and at declaration. An agent who does not check in is a signal, and somebody must be watching for missing check-ins in real time rather than noticing at midnight.

A form-capture habit. The agent's job is to get the signed result form recorded before they leave the station. A photograph of the form, with the station identified, is the single most valuable thing an agent produces.

Somebody watching the map. During counting, a campaign needs one person looking at which streams have reported and which have not, because the gap is where the problem is.

That last capability is exactly what BallotWinners was built for: results coming in from named agents, stream by stream, with the form they came from attached, and the empty streams listed so the coordinator can chase them while it still matters. Not a dashboard for the sake of it — a way to see the thing that is going wrong at the hour it is going wrong.

Related: the goon economy.