Election campaigns are, by design, exercises in political imagination. They invite citizens to envision a different future, offering competing narratives about the role of the state, the direction of the economy and the priorities of public policy. Political manifestos are intended to persuade. They present a party's vision for governing and offer voters a roadmap for addressing the country's most pressing challenges. During the 2022 general election, the Kenya Kwanza administration unveiled its manifesto, The Plan, promising far-reaching reforms in healthcare, housing and agriculture. Like many campaign documents, it projected confidence that these commitments could be translated into government action once electoral victory had been secured.

Yet governing is rarely as straightforward as campaigning. Once campaign promises move beyond the rally stage, they enter a constitutional and institutional environment that is far more complex than the campaign trail suggests. Policies must comply with existing laws, withstand public scrutiny and, where challenged, survive judicial review. In recent years, several flagship government programmes have encountered delays or been reshaped after courts examined whether their implementation complied with constitutional requirements. These developments illustrate an important feature of constitutional democracy: electoral victory provides the authority to govern, but it does not remove the obligation to govern within the law.

Mzalendo Trust's Promise Tracker has documented this pattern over time. A growing number of campaign commitments are classified as Stalled or Modified, reflecting the realities of implementation rather than simply political intention. While changing economic conditions and shifting priorities often play a role, legal and constitutional questions have become an equally significant factor. This suggests that the challenge is not always a lack of political commitment. In many cases, manifesto promises encounter constitutional, legislative or institutional requirements that were not fully anticipated during the campaign.

The Myth of the Blanket Mandate

Election victories understandably give governments a strong democratic mandate to pursue their policy agenda. Too often, however, that mandate is interpreted as authority to implement manifesto commitments without sufficient regard to the constitutional processes that govern public decision-making. The assumption is that electoral endorsement alone settles questions of legitimacy.

Kenya's constitutional framework suggests otherwise. Articles 10 and 94 of the Constitution make it clear that public participation, constitutional governance and adherence to due process are not optional steps that follow political decision-making; they are integral to it. Governments are therefore required to implement their programmes within the constitutional framework, regardless of the strength of their electoral mandate.

Recent judicial decisions reflect this principle. Rather than questioning the legitimacy of elected governments, the courts have increasingly examined whether the processes used to implement major reforms comply with constitutional standards. Where those standards have not been met, implementation has been delayed, revised or subjected to further scrutiny.

Viewed through this lens, the growing number of Stalled and Modified commitments recorded by the Promise Tracker tells a broader governance story. It suggests that the gap between campaign promises and implementation often emerges long before a policy reaches the courts. It begins during manifesto development, when political ambition is not always matched by equal attention to constitutional requirements, legislative processes and institutional capacity. The result is that governments frequently spend their early years revising, defending or restructuring flagship reforms instead of implementing them as originally envisioned.

From NHIF to SHA: The Cost of Bypassing Statutory Compliance

The challenges of translating manifesto commitments into public policy are perhaps most visible in Kenya's healthcare reforms. During the 2022 election campaign, the Kenya Kwanza coalition committed itself to achieving Universal Health Coverage through a comprehensive overhaul of the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF). The manifesto promised to reduce out-of-pocket medical expenses and expand access to affordable healthcare, particularly for vulnerable groups, including persons with disabilities.

Turning that commitment into reality, however, proved considerably more complex than announcing it during a campaign.

Delivering Universal Health Coverage required more than replacing one institution with another. It demanded new legislation, administrative restructuring, sustainable financing, public participation and effective coordination across multiple actors within the health sector, both at national and county level. As the government moved to replace NHIF with the Social Health Authority (SHA) and introduce the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF), implementation quickly exposed the practical challenges of managing reforms of this scale. The introduction of a mandatory 2.75 per cent contribution for salaried workers and a minimum contribution for those in the informal sector marked a significant shift in Kenya's health financing model, but the transition also raised legal, operational and institutional questions that extended well beyond the original manifesto commitment.

Reflecting these implementation challenges, the Promise Tracker currently categorizes the government's healthcare commitment as Ongoing and Modified. This classification is not simply a measure of progress; it reflects the extent to which the original policy has evolved as it encountered constitutional, legal and administrative realities. Three issues illustrate why implementation became more complicated than the campaign promise suggested.

First, the legal and regulatory framework proved more contested than anticipated. Civil society organisations challenged aspects of the rollout, arguing that elements of the reform had not been supported by adequate public participation and transparency. While the courts did not reject the broader objective of reforming healthcare financing, they scrutinised whether the implementation process complied with constitutional requirements. The litigation demonstrated that even widely supported policy goals must be pursued through constitutionally sound processes.

Second, unresolved financial obligations complicated the transition. The move from NHIF to SHA occurred while substantial debts owed by the former NHIF to private and faith-based health facilities remained outstanding. As uncertainty grew over reimbursement, some facilities declined to accept the new SHA cards, leaving many patients to pay for treatment directly or experience delays in accessing care. These operational challenges illustrated how unresolved institutional issues can undermine otherwise ambitious reforms.

Third, implementation depended heavily on administrative and technological readiness. The government invested significantly in digitizing health management systems and equipping Community Health Promoters with digital tools intended to improve service delivery. Yet reports of system integration challenges, implementation delays and procurement concerns raised questions about whether the supporting infrastructure was sufficiently prepared for reforms of this magnitude. The ambition of the policy was clear; ensuring that institutions were ready to deliver it proved to be a more demanding task.

The transition from NHIF to SHA therefore offers a broader lesson about governance. Manifestos can articulate ambitious policy goals, but they cannot, on their own, create functioning institutions. Successful reform depends on careful legislative design, meaningful public participation, administrative preparedness and sustained institutional coordination. When these foundations are overlooked or compressed in the interest of speed, governments often find themselves revising, defending or slowing reforms that were intended to demonstrate early progress. In this sense, the experience of healthcare reform illustrates a central argument of this article: the success of a manifesto depends not only on the strength of its political vision, but also on the quality of the institutions responsible for translating that vision into practice.

Executive Authority, Constitutional Limits and the Challenge of Implementation

The relationship between manifesto commitments and constitutional governance extends beyond public service delivery. It is equally evident in the organization of the state itself. Governments often seek to establish new advisory structures, coordination units or administrative mechanisms to accelerate implementation of their policy agenda. While such initiatives may be intended to improve efficiency, they must still operate within the constitutional framework governing public administration. In Kenya, recent litigation demonstrates that executive ambition, however well-intentioned, cannot substitute for constitutionally prescribed processes.

Two recent decisions illustrate this principle.

The Presidential Advisory Offices

In Katiba Institute v Attorney General & Others (2026), the High Court declared unconstitutional the establishment of 21 advisory offices within the Executive Office of the President. The Court found that the creation and staffing of these offices had not complied with the constitutional and statutory framework governing the public service. It held that the process had bypassed the role of the Public Service Commission (PSC), lacked the necessary legal foundation and failed to satisfy principles of public financial management. As a result, the Court restrained the payment of public funds to the affected offices.

The significance of the decision extends beyond the advisory offices themselves. The Court did not question the value of expert advice to the Presidency. Rather, it reaffirmed a constitutional principle: the establishment of public offices must follow the legal procedures designed to safeguard transparency, accountability and institutional independence. Administrative convenience, however desirable, cannot replace constitutional compliance.

Executive Order No. 3 of 2024

A similar principle emerged in the litigation challenging Executive Order No. 3 of 2024, which introduced new directives on the governance, staffing and human resource management of state corporations. The High Court held that aspects of the Executive Order encroached upon the constitutional mandate of the Public Service Commission. Reaffirming Article 234(2) of the Constitution, the Court emphasised that responsibility for regulating appointments and conditions of service within the public service rests with the PSC and cannot be assumed through executive directive.

Once again, the issue before the Court was not whether reforms to public administration were desirable. The question was whether those reforms had been pursued through constitutionally permissible means. The judgment reinforces an important feature of Kenya's constitutional order: executive authority exists within a framework of institutions whose mandates are protected by the Constitution itself.

A Broader Lesson for Manifesto Implementation

Taken together, these decisions illustrate a broader challenge that extends beyond the specific disputes before the courts. Governments understandably seek efficient mechanisms for delivering ambitious policy programmes, particularly during the early years of an administration when political expectations are highest. Yet constitutional democracies require that institutional reform proceed through established legal processes rather than executive discretion alone.

Through the prism of the Promise Tracker, these judgments help explain why some commitments move more slowly than anticipated or require significant revision during implementation. The issue is not simply that courts intervene. Rather, implementation becomes more complex when the institutional arrangements intended to deliver policy are themselves found to be inconsistent with constitutional requirements.

The lesson is, therefore, broader than these individual cases. Manifestos cannot assume that new institutions, offices or administrative structures will automatically emerge once a government takes office. They must be designed with an appreciation of the constitutional framework within which the government operates. Where that framework is overlooked, governments spend valuable time defending implementation strategies, restructuring institutions or responding to judicial decisions instead of advancing the policy objectives that motivated the reforms in the first place.

These cases reinforce the central argument of this piece: the transition from manifesto to government is not simply a political process. It is a constitutional one. Electoral victory provides the authority to pursue reform, but the Constitution determines the way that authority may be exercised. Recognising this distinction is essential if political manifestos are to become credible roadmaps for governing rather than ambitious campaign documents whose implementation begins to unravel once they encounter the institutions of constitutional democracy.

Majoritarian Mandate vs. Constitutionalism

Many of the legal disputes surrounding recent government reforms reflect a deeper question about democratic governance: what exactly does an electoral mandate authorise?

One perspective holds that winning an election gives a government broad authority to implement the programme on which it campaigned. Under this view, a manifesto represents a contract with voters, and electoral victory provides a clear democratic endorsement of its major policy commitments. Governments are therefore expected to move quickly to fulfil those promises and may view prolonged administrative or legal processes as obstacles to delivering on the mandate they received from the electorate.

Kenya's constitutional framework, however, adopts a broader understanding of democratic legitimacy. While elections determine who governs, they do not alter the constitutional rules that govern how power is exercised. The Constitution requires that public authority be exercised through lawful procedures, meaningful public participation, transparency and respect for the mandates of independent institutions. Electoral success, therefore, is the beginning of constitutional government rather than an exception to it.

Recent judicial decisions have consistently reinforced this principle. The courts have not suggested that political manifestos lack democratic significance. Rather, they have emphasised that manifesto commitments do not carry legal force in themselves. They remain political commitments whose implementation must comply with constitutional requirements, statutory procedures and institutional safeguards. Therefore, judicial review is not a rejection of electoral mandates; it is a mechanism for ensuring that those mandates are pursued within the constitutional framework established by the people themselves.

This distinction helps explain why some flagship reforms encounter repeated legal challenges. The issue is often less about the policy objective than about the process through which that objective is pursued. Where legislation, public participation, institutional mandates or constitutional safeguards receive insufficient attention during implementation, litigation becomes more likely. As a result, governments can find themselves defending the legality of reforms before they are able to realise their intended benefits.

Campaign promises do not become difficult only when they reach the courts. Their trajectory is often shaped much earlier, during the design of the policy itself. When constitutional requirements, administrative capacity and institutional mandates are considered from the outset, implementation is more likely to proceed smoothly. When they are treated as issues to be addressed after political commitments have been made, delays, revisions and legal disputes become increasingly common.

Closing the Implementation Gap

The challenge, therefore, is not simply one of political commitment but of policy design. Manifestos should not be judged solely by the ambition of their promises. They should also be assessed by whether those promises are legally, institutionally and fiscally capable of being implemented. Political vision remains essential, but vision alone cannot substitute for constitutional preparation.

This calls for a broader approach to manifesto development. Political parties would benefit from treating manifesto drafting as the first stage of governing rather than the final stage of campaigning. Alongside political strategists and communications teams, the process should involve constitutional lawyers, public finance experts, policy practitioners and public administration specialists who can test whether proposed reforms are consistent with existing legal frameworks and institutional realities. Doing so would not diminish political ambition; it would increase the likelihood that ambitious commitments can be translated into lasting public policy.

For citizens, this shift has equally important implications. Tools such as the Promise Tracker encourage voters to look beyond whether promises have been fulfilled and ask why some commitments succeed while others stall, evolve or disappear altogether. These patterns reveal that democratic accountability is not only about measuring political performance but also about understanding the quality of policy design.

As Kenya prepares for future electoral cycles, perhaps the conversation around manifestos should evolve. Rather than asking only what political parties promise, citizens should also ask how those promises will be implemented. How will they comply with constitutional requirements? Which institutions will be responsible for delivery? What legislative changes will be required? Are adequate financial and administrative systems already in place? How realistic are these promises within the existing financial and administrative systems? Ultimately, the most enduring political promises are not those that sound the most ambitious during campaigns. They are those that can survive the transition from electoral rhetoric to constitutional government.