Last Wednesday, Kenyan President William Ruto announced that he won’t sign into law a finance bill proposing new taxes. He made this decision a day after nationwide protests rocked the nation, as demonstrators stormed Parliament and at least 20 people were shot dead by security forces.
Why did the bill, which sought to raise funds to pay off the national debt, cause such an uproar? The primary reason, according to the protesters, was that it would place even greater economic hardship on an already struggling populace.
While that is certainly true, the ferocity of these demonstrations had much to do with how Mr Ruto and his colleagues in government have conducted themselves over the past two years. The President’s glamorous lifestyle has especially been an object of public indignation at a time when many families have struggled to put food on the table.
Last month, Mr Ruto was criticised for hiring a private jet on a visit to the US, with media reports alleging he had paid $1.5 million for it. He insisted the charter was paid for by “friends” and cost taxpayers less than $73,000, but to no avail.
On the issue of luxury, Mr Ruto has not been alone. Several of his cabinet colleagues and other officials have adopted his safari-style outfits with collarless jackets, designer watches and shoes. Recently, a close ally of the President, who was in court over questionable academic papers, donated $155,000 to a church fundraiser.
When the East African nation erupted into chaos, in response to the proposed tax hikes, it was such extravagance that fuelled the anger.
The Finance Bill 2024, a piece of legislation that intended to raise $2.7 billion in new levies to finance several social programmes, was a major point of contention. The squeezing of more taxes from the public is in line with fiscal reforms agreed with the International Monetary Fund, which wants Nairobi to slow down on international borrowing and raise money through taxation.
Kenya owes $80 billion in domestic and foreign public debt, accounting for almost 75 per cent of the nation’s entire economic output.
To make matters worse, Mr Ruto has been unable to cut government waste. In the now-withdrawn budget, for example, $12 million had been earmarked to furnish the President’s official residence.
Two years ago, Mr Ruto was the darling of the poor. He ran for president on a poor man’s ticket, telling his supporters that he once sold chicken to earn a living. In contrast, his opponent, Raila Odinga, was the son of Kenya’s first vice president, Jaramogi Odinga, and was backed by then president Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of Kenya’s first president, Jomo Kenyatta.
Mr Ruto positioned himself to the electorate as a Christian and a “prayerful” presidential candidate, and it worked. His supporters regarded his victory as a triumph over the entrenched political dynasties that the Kenyattas and Odingas have come to represent. Today, however, some of the churches that backed Mr Ruto have turned against him.
On the global stage, the President has always spoken with authority and is much liked in the West. When the US designated the East African nation as a non-Nato ally – as US President Joe Biden hosted Mr Ruto at the White House – it was not lost on observers that he was the first African leader in more than 15 years to make a state visit to the US.
But such achievements have meant little to ordinary Kenyans, many of whom take a dim view of Mr Ruto’s frequent travels abroad. By June, he had made 62 trips to 38 countries. According to the auditor general, in the financial year ending June 2023, his travel budget had stood at $10 million.
The punitive tax measures contained in the finance bill, it seems, represented the final straw. They led to the uprising by the youth, which makes up about 35 per cent of the Kenya’s population and bears the brunt of any economic austerity measures.
The skirmishes caught the National Intelligence Service by surprise, according to Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua. The demography, a mixture of young men and women daring the police and broadcasting their moves on social media, also surprised mainstream media outlets. At first, Mr Ruto regarded the protests as “treasonous” and its participants as “criminals”, before backing down.
During his election campaign, Mr Ruto had promised decent jobs to the youth. But as the debt burden continues to consume nearly a quarter of the government’s revenue in interest payments alone, most of these promises have waned. Recently, Mr Ruto was forced to use a World Bank loan to pay off a $500 million Eurobond, an indicator of the dire financial straits that the nation faces.
Another source of public anger has been the President’s inability to tame corruption. After taking office, his government stopped the high-level corruption cases that had been initiated by Mr Kenyatta. Mr Ruto said the cases had been politically instigated, but critics argue that by stopping these cases he had created new spaces of impunity within the government.
It’s important to point out that Kenya’s troubles did not start under the Ruto administration. The root of the debt problem goes back to the early 2000s, when the government borrowed heavily from international creditors to fund SMEs and finance infrastructure and agricultural projects. The failure to invest these loans judiciously has proved costly, as have a series of natural disasters, including the Covid-19 pandemic.
But Mr Ruto’s inability to deliver on promises of turning around the economy has made him the target of public ire. During the protests, one banner read: “When he is not flying, he is lying.” It is a sentiment that sums up how some Kenyans feel about the President today. And by withdrawing the contentious legislation, he has revealed his Achilles heel.
In a country where politics is organised along tribal lines, the protests will be a wake-up call to Mr Ruto to reorganise his politics – particularly having won the presidency with a slim majority of 300,000 votes – if he wants to secure re-election in 2027.
He will have his work cut out for him. The recent legislation has made him so unpopular that many Kenyans now call him “Zakayo” – the Swahili name for the Biblical tax collector Zacchaeus. The talk in Nairobi now is that all politicians who voted for the bill would be punished at the ballot box in three years’ time.
More broadly, the protests mark an important turning point in Kenyan politics, with a chastened executive now well aware of the limits of trying to bulldoze laws through Parliament.
