Communist Party of Kenya
Chairperson	Mwandawiro Mgangah[1]
Deputy Chairperson	Gitahi Ngunyi[2]
General Secretary	Benedict Wachira[3]
Founded	1992 (1992)
Headquarters	Nairobi
Ideology	Communism Marxism–Leninism Maoism Pan-Africanism Historical: Social democracy
Political position	Far-left
International affiliation	ICOR World Anti-Imperialist Platform[4]
Party flag
Website
cpk.ke
Politics of Kenya Political parties Elections

The Communist Party of Kenya (CPK), formerly known as the Social Democratic Party (SDP), is a communist party in Kenya.^[5]

History

The party was established in 1992 as the Social Democratic Party (SDP) by Johnstone Makau.^[6] The party did not nominate a presidential candidate in the December 1992 general elections, and received only 177 votes in the National Assembly elections.

Charity Ngilu joined the party before the 1997 elections, and was selected as the party's presidential candidate. She finished fifth in a field of 15 candidates with 7.9% of the vote. The party also won 15 seats in the National Assembly. Ngilu left the party after the elections, and in 2001 was succeeded as party chairman by James Orengo.^[6] He stood as the party's presidential candidate in the 2002 elections, but received just 0.4% of the vote; the party also lost all 15 seats in the National Assembly. Its vote share was reduced to 0.4% in the 2007 general elections, in which it fielded 24 candidates. It also failed to win seats in the 2013 elections, receiving only 0.15% of the vote with seven candidates.

In 2019, the party changed its name from SDP to the Communist Party of Kenya (CPK).^[7] Under its communist mandate, the CPK seeks to "win popular power by organising the masses and freeing them from the capitalist ethnic and financial political orientation that we are in now."^[8] With the change, the party took up a revolutionary position and adopted a Marxist–Leninist ideology.^[9]

Electoral history

Presidential elections

Election	Party candidate	Votes	%	Result
1992	did not contest
1997	Charity Ngilu	488,600	7.89%	Lost N
2002	James Orengo	24,524	0.4%	Lost N
2007	did not contest
2013
Aug. 2017
Oct. 2017
2022

National Assembly elections

Election	Votes		%	Seats	+/–	Position
1992	177		<0.01%	0 / 188		9th
1997				15 / 188	15	5th
2002				0 / 210	15
2007	39,871		0.41%	0 / 210		22nd
2013	Constituency	18,284	0.15	0 / 349		39th
	County	7,684	0.06
2017	did not contest			0 / 348		N/A
2022				0 / 349		N/A

Senate elections

Election	Votes	%	Seats	+/–	Position
2013	24,650	0.20%	0 / 67		25th
2017	did not contest		0 / 67		N/A
2022			0 / 67		N/A

References