Download Your Copy: The Chronicle Weekly July 6, 2026
Four years after promising to transform Kenya from the bottom up, President William Ruto is campaigning for re-election on a different pitch entirely: delivery.
This week’s Chronicle Weekly puts that claim to the test.
Our cover investigation traces how “Bottom-Up Economics” quietly gave way to a scorecard of cranes, clinics, and commissioning ceremonies, and asks whether infrastructure can outweigh a cost-of-living crisis that hasn’t loosened its grip.
The numbers are stark and often contradictory: 230,000 housing units against a manifesto promise of a million; 29 million SHA registrations against just 4.8 million active contributors; fibre optic cable laid at 5% of the promised scale, alongside genuine gains in agriculture, digitisation, and infrastructure.
Elsewhere in this issue:
- Why Kenya keeps importing what it can grow: Sh160 billion a year on edible oil alone, and the political economy that keeps it that way.
- They came in Subaru cars; two years later, no one has been charged: An accounting of the 127 documented deaths since the June 2024 protests, and the two prosecutions that exist against them.
- The cost of living in 2026: What 6.7% inflation actually looks like on a plate of ugali and a matatu fare.
- Kenya is the location. Who owns the story?: Hollywood keeps filming in Kenya. Kenya keeps missing the credit line.
- A community that never stopped throwing: How Kenya’s darts scene produced a world championship win with zero government funding.
