In my honest opinion, we are top 2 in Africa after SA in democracy terms and definitely in top 30 worldwide after the just concluded elections and settlement of the supreme court petition.
We should not confuse being competitive with being undemocratic. Kenyan political space is very competitve unlike the rest of Africa.
Those economist (western)etc opinions are based on yesternews. The downside is that there opinion matters
"The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline." James Collins