Kenya's President Ruto About To Be Forced Out

Nothing to Lose Kenya In late June, Kenyan President William Ruto blinked. After winning the 2022 general election on his plans to reform the economy, he scuttled planned tax hikes and conceded that he was reversing his position in the wake of protests by Gen Z and millennials who ransacked parliament and stayed on the streets for weeks, despite a crackdown that led to at least 50 deaths. Now protesters want Ruto to step down, too, even after he fired most of his cabinet in a move designed to show his critics that he is open to change. “The arrogance is gone, but the lies are still there,” wrote prominent social justice activist Boniface Mwangi on X, formerly known as Twitter, according to Reuters. “Yesterday they unleashed goons and police to kill peaceful protesters. That will not stop us.” This attitude is one reason why the Economist believed the protests could change the East African country forever. The protests erupted after Ruto announced his plan to raise levies on commodities, increasing living costs as many Kenyans are already struggling to make ends meet, wrote CNN. Now they have also expanded to include general discontent with government incompetence and corruption. “It’s about a generation demanding a better future, one where they are not perpetually marginalized,” Daystar University political analyst Wandia Njoya told Turkey’s Anadolu Agency. As Inge Amundsen, a senior researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute, noted in the Conversation, Kenyan politicians frequently enact laws and rig regulations to benefit themselves and their circles. These politicians then use their influence to control companies, government agencies, civil institutions, and other groups, cementing their power and creating networks of patronage and illicit activities. Ruto has announced reforms that aim to attack political corruption. But whether or not he can pierce the elite networks that benefit from these relationships will depend on how much political capital he wants to expend on changing the country’s power structure that helped propel him to office. In the meantime, the protests are spreading on the continent. Youth groups are organizing similar mass demonstrations in Nigeria, Uganda, and elsewhere where officials appear more likely to help themselves than tackle the issues that are harming their constituents, noted World Politics Review. In Nigeria, for example, wrote Semafor, protests kicked off on August 1, leading to at least a dozen deaths. Military authorities have said they stand ready to restore order if necessary. But that might only stop the momentum temporarily, especially as global economic growth is expected to decrease, exacerbating economic struggles and limiting opportunity. “It’s a wake-up call,” Xavier Ichani, who teaches international relations at Kenyatta University in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, told Semafor, referring to the widening movement. “Governments need to move with speed and address the grievances of the people.”