Politics of darkness: Why power rationing is back

When a government starts switching off the lights, it is never just about electricity. It is about power. The darkness it imposes often mirrors the political darkness it seeks to hide.

President William Ruto’s latest announcement that his government will begin rationing electricity between 5 pm and 10 pm, the very hours when families, businesses and electoral counts are most active, reveals not an energy crisis but a moral one. This government promised to light every Kenyan home. The administration paraded electricity meters as symbols of progress during the campaign. Ruto’s bottom-up revolution was to illuminate every village. Yet now, it is dimming the very lights it vowed to brighten. The irony is profound. 

Power rationing is not a sign of scarcity. It is an admission of failure. Kenya has enough generation capacity to meet national demand. What it lacks is competent leadership. The problem lies in politicised energy contracts, corruption, and fiscal indiscipline that have made electricity expensive and unreliable. But there is a darker layer to this policy. The opposition has warned that Ruto may be borrowing a page from Tanzania’s 2025 playbook, where power and internet cuts were used to manipulate elections. The suspicion is not far-fetched. In Kenya, vote counting happens in the evening. A planned blackout between 5 pm and 10 pm would conveniently plunge tallying centres in forthcoming bye-elections into darkness, a perfect cover for tampering with results, disabling CCTV systems, or disrupting transmission. When the lights go out, the truth becomes negotiable. 

Even if we strip away political suspicion, the economic and social toll is immense. For millions of small traders, mama mbogas, welders, cyber café owners, salons, and food vendors, those hours mean everything. That is when businesses thrive and families cook, students study, and hospitals save lives. This policy, presented as “fair sharing,” is, in reality, cruel against working Kenyans struggling under unbearable taxes and a collapsing economy.

Ruto’s rationing plan fits neatly into his broader governance pattern. He has rationed everything: hope, opportunity, and freedom. He runs a government not on moral energy but on excuses. He blames citizens for consuming too much electricity while doing nothing to expand the supply. He lectures taxpayers about sacrifice while officials live in luxury. Kenya’s problem is not insufficient power; it is excessive hypocrisy. 

Energy rationing is, therefore, not merely a technical issue. It is a reflection of a government that has lost its sense of purpose. The symbolism is haunting: darkness descending over a nation that once hoped to shine. The promise of electricity was never about bulbs alone; it was about dignity and progress. It was about the confidence that our leaders could deliver the basics of civilisation. If indeed these planned blackouts are a rehearsal for possible manipulation of the coming bye-elections and the 2027 General Election, they must be met with firm civic resistance. Kenya has endured enough darkness from opaque contracts to hidden votes. We must refuse to be governed in the dark. Leadership is not about switching off the lights when things get tough. It is about finding new ways to generate energy, both moral and material, to keep the country shining. 

Kenya already generates more electricity than it consumes. With an installed capacity exceeding 3,300 MW against peak demand of about 2,200 MW, the country’s issue is not insufficient generation but weak transmission and storage. 

Aging and overloaded transmission lines, high system losses, and slow grid expansion mean that power generated, especially from geothermal and wind, often cannot reach where it is needed. Meanwhile, the absence of large-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS) limits Kenya’s ability to balance intermittent renewable sources and store excess power for peak periods. 

To unlock Kenya’s clean energy advantage, focus must shift from building new plants to modernising the grid, investing in storage, and improving distribution efficiency.  

President Ruto must be told that every time he turns off the light, he turns on suspicion. And no government has ever governed for long under the cover of darkness.