Why President's hustler revolution has finally died

President William Ruto interacts with small-scale traders during the launch of Hustler Fund at Green Park in Nairobi. [File, Standard]

With Thursday’s Cabinet appointments, President William Ruto effectively concluded his drawn-out surrender to Kenya’s establishment, the so-called dynasties.

Ruto won the presidency on the promise of working to remake our political economy – to knock off the “dynasties” from their monopolistic perch, and make the economy fairer for all Kenyans (especially the poorest among us).

He also promised to eschew the old politics of ethnic censuses and elite deals that for decades served to demobilise any hint of real popular influence on public policy. 

Now the dynasts are back, with the president all but conceding that his radical reforms of the state administrative structure and our social contract are a dud.

Obviously, there is still a lot that could happen between now and 2027 when the emerging elite consensus will be put to test. But for now, it is worth asking whether this particular outcome was inevitable. Could Ruto have avoided having to go back to the dynasties to shore up his presidency? If so, what would that have taken? 

From my vantage point, it is now clear that there is no way Ruto would have avoided this outcome. Doing so would have required committing “class suicide” as a politician. That Kenyan politicians have to steal to live is a given.

Therefore, anyone out to remake our political economy necessarily has to commit that their coalition will not engage in wanton theft; and instead focus on serving the general public. Despite all the campaign promises, this in the end proved a bridge too far for the President and his Kenya Kwanza allies. 

This reality then put the President in direct confrontation with the very people who elected him. Both the “Hustler Nation” and those who did not vote for him expected something different.

The abrogation of the campaign commitments in the face of rising cost of living and generalised misery is what led to the June/July protests and the storming of Parliament.

In the aftermath, Ruto could have re-committed to work for the people and commit ‘class suicide’ as a politician. But he simply could not. It proved much easier to exorcise real and imagined ghosts by impeaching Rigathi Gachagua.

Gachagua’s exit, in a way, opened the door for the establishment to get into bed with Ruto. And thus the empire fought back, and won. We are squarely back to a political economy characterised by elite collusion against the interests of the general public. Ruto’s would-be “Hustler Revolution” failed.

-The writer is associate professor at Georgetown University