Why President's hustler revolution has finally died

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