THE POLITICS OF VISIBILITY: WHY IS TRANSPARENCY BECOMING A BATTLE BEFORE 2027? When the public begins asking to see the numbers, the question is no longer merely who will win. It is whether the process will command publicity. There is something deeply unsettling about a country approaching a general election while the rules governing public access to election results become a subject of national controversy. The Elections (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 2024, opened a debate that Kenya could hardly afford to ignore: should citizens merely receive the final figures, or should they retain the ability to watch results being announced at polling stations and independently compare them with the figures eventually declared? The original version of the Bill proposed replacing Section 39 of the Elections Act without expressly retaining IEBC’s obligation to establish a mechanism for livestreaming results. That omission triggered alarm among Kenyans who consider real-time public sc...