In Kenya, elections are often treated as events. They arrive with noise, peak with tension, and leave behind both winners and wounds. Then we move on until the next cycle begins.But that cycle is exactly the problem.Elections are not moments. They are processes. And if we are honest, Kenya has developed a habit of ignoring the process until it is too late to fix it.The road to 2027 has already begun.What we are witnessing now is not preparation. It is avoidance.We are drifting into another election cycle without confronting the same unresolved questions that have haunted previous ones. We are repeating a pattern that has cost this country trust, stability, and at times, lives.We know how this story goes.We delay difficult conversations. We pretend gaps are manageable. We assure ourselves there is still time. Then the political season arrives, the temperature rises, suspicion spreads, and suddenly the country is on edge. Afterwards, we promise to do better.And then we forget.If nothing changes, 2027 will not surprise us. It will confirm that we did not prepare ourselves as a country for a free and fair election.Even now, the cracks are visible.There is already confusion during the ongoing Enhanced Continuous Voter Registration exercise, running until April 28, 2026. The electoral body has had to publicly dismiss claims that all pre-2012 voters must re-register. That clarification alone tells its own story. A process as fundamental as voter registration should not be this misunderstood.Yes, the shift from a manual register to a biometric system after the 2010 Constitution is clear in law. It has been in place for over a decade. Yet misinformation spreads faster than clarity, and the burden of correcting it falls too late and too often on the same institutions expected to inspire trust.That is not a communications problem. It is a credibility problem.At the same time, politics is already in motion.Leaders are crisscrossing the country, not to present ideas or policy direction, but to test the ground for 2027. The language is not just familiar. It is deteriorating. Insults are becoming strategy. Outrage is becoming currency. Public discourse is being reduced to spectacle.This is not leadership. It is rehearsal.In some parts of the country, we are already hearing the farmilir language of zoning. Quietly, but unmistakably, the idea that leadership can be pre-allocated along regional lines is creeping back into the national conversation. It is a dangerous signal. It tells citizens that the outcome is being shaped before the process even begins.We have seen where that road leads. Tension builds early. Trust erodes quietly. And by the time the country realises what is happening, it is already too late to reverse it.And yet, in the middle of this, there is a different energy.Young people are not waiting.Through campaigns such as Niko Kadi, they are mobilising themselves to register as voters, pushing each other to participate and to take ownership of the process. It is one of the clearest signs that citizens are beginning to understand something many institutions still struggle with. Elections are not about one day. They are about everything that happens before it.But awareness alone will not fix a broken process.The electoral body cannot operate on assumptions. It cannot rely on last-minute communication to build long-term trust. Transparency must be constant. Engagement must be deliberate. Systems must not only work, but they must also be seen to work.Because when citizens begin to doubt the process, they do not wait for evidence. They prepare for a dispute.This is where the real danger lies.And this is not just about institutions.It is about a political culture that has become comfortable with doing the bare minimum. A culture that rewards noise over substance, loyalty over accountability, and mobilisation over meaning. A culture where winning matters more than how the victory is achieved.That culture does not change on its own. It is allowed to continue.It is allowed by silence.It is allowed by delay.It is allowed by a collective refusal to confront it early enough.The media must also take responsibility.We cannot claim neutrality while amplifying chaos. We cannot reduce elections to headlines and soundbites and then act surprised when the public is misinformed. Our role is not to echo the noise. It is to challenge it, to interrogate it, and to provide clarity when it is most needed.At Capital FM, that is the position we are taking.Through our April focus, The Road to 2027 Elections, we are choosing to engage the process now, not when it is already out of control. We will ask uncomfortable questions. We will examine preparedness. We will give citizens a voice before the political class dominates the conversation.Because by the time campaigns take over, the real decisions have already been made.Elections do not collapse on polling day.They collapse slowly, in the months and years of neglect that come before.This is that moment.We can confront the gaps now, while there is still time to fix them. Or we can continue with the same script and act shocked when the outcome is the same.The road to 2027 is not ahead of us.We are already on it.The only question is whether we are paying attention, or simply repeating history in real time.^Editorial Director