Youth protests have exposed Kenya's fragility, supremacy wars

The recent wave of protests – the biggest upheaval since the 1982 coup attempt – have revived the decades-old supremacy battle over the country’s leadership, with President William Ruto and his deputy Rigathi Gachagua now at the centre of the new tug-of-war.

While the trigger of the initially youth-led protests was the Finance Bill 2024 that proposed new taxes, the real dispute revolves around who can lead Kenya’s 54 million people.

President Ruto called the protests an “attack on Kenya’s constitutional order.” In others words: A coup attempt.

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In an interview with Citizen TV’s JK Live on Wednesday night, Defense Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale said, “There was a systematic plan to burn Parliament, to burn the Supreme Court and maybe the whole of the government square and then go to State House.”

The protests -- whose scale and scope surprised many -- have pitched the country and its citizens into a maelstrom of fear and uncertainty and raised hard questions about the country’s political stability and its ability to withstand major agitations without tipping into anarchy.

Elephant in the room

Deputy President Gachagua claimed, without providing evidence, that the country’s spy chief, Noordin Haji, was planning to connect him and former President Uhuru Kenyatta to the chaos that roiled the country.

The Kikuyu question has always been the elephant in the room in Kenya’s politics, and it played out in the background in recent protests, with some Kenyans saying that the current political tensions were no more than an expression of a Kikuyu elite’s rejection of Ruto’s rule.

In fact, a significant number of Mount Kenya elites believe that Kenya is their ‘gift’ and that it should be led by a Kikuyu or at least by someone they groomed.  Former President Uhuru Kenyatta endorsed opposition leader Raila Odinga during the 2022 elections to head off Ruto’s ascendency. 

Decades ago, a group of Kikuyus, who were colloquially dubbed Kiambu Mafia, tried to amend the country’s Constitution to stop to former President Daniel arap Moi, a Kalenjin, who was then the vice president, from automatically taking power from President Jomo Kenyatta.

Moi eventually became the country’s second president after the death of Kenyatta in 1978, but his biggest political pain during his tenure came from Kikuyu politicians.

It is doubtful that a Raila presidency would have been any different or brought the political stability the country badly needs to develop as long as Kikuyu elites’ sense of entitlement remains unaddressed.

Raila learnt that the hard way, as his several bids to become the country’s president was repeatedly frustrated through legal and political means. Claims of manipulating presidential election results in favour of one group have dogged the country’s electoral system since the 2007 elections.

Fragile country

Kenya is so far fortunate to emerge from the recent protests in one piece, although that is largely because of the timely deployment of the army, which were, according to Duale, assigned the task of protecting key installations and civilians from criminal gangs and goons hired by politicians and other people “who’re no different from the bandits and terrorists.”

The last time the nation’s citizens witnessed such a panic and chaos was during the 2007-2008 post-election violence that left more than 1,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands of people displaced.

Had the President, who’s in the clear -- at least for now -- not given in to the youth’s calls for the withdrawal of the finance bill or had the youth continued their activism for more consecutive days, the country would have been in the throes of a major political crisis by now.

Chillingly, the leaderless protesters – who first organized themselves online before flooding the streets -- had no solid Plan B about what they would do if their actions led to the collapse of the current government.

In an increasingly multipolar world, where great powers compete over influence in other countries, it’s too easy for foreign powers to take advantage of a disaffected segment of society and turn it into a tool for geopolitical leverage and endanger the country’s unity and stability.

The demonstrations, which later morphed into riots that brought life in the country to a near standstill, have highlighted the Kenyan state’s fragility and how its foundation – from security to politics to its people’s cohesion-- was wanting, a sad reality after 61 years of self-rule.

In a matter of three weeks, Kenya, once an oasis of stability, appeared as if it was in the birth pangs of a sociopolitical revolution whose architects were the youth born between 1996 and early 2000s
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Even the rioters who stormed Parliament and burnt a part of it couldn’t believe their luck when they outnumbered and outmaneuvered and eventually overwhelmed the ill-equipped and ill-prepared police force.

To be sure, what happened on June 25 was not something that only affected Kenya.

On January 6, 2021, a mob of insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol Hill, dealing the 248-year-old union a jolt of realization that even a superpower was not immune from the destruction of disgruntled people.

Government’s slow response

The writing was on the wall for Ruto, even before the youth poured on to the streets, with elites from Mount Kenya taking the lead in the push to incite the public against the Ruto administration. 

About a month ago, Jimmy Wanjigi, the Safina party’s 2022 presidential candidate, labeled Ruto “the main problem” in the country and said that he “must go,” a jingle that was later adopted by the rioters.

“He has reached his dead-end,” Wanjigi said.

When asked whether his words were undermining the rule of law, Wanjigi replied: “That passed a long time ago.”

“The leadership has been a fraud and they must get out of office,” he said.

On April 17, Jeremiah Kioni, the Jubilee Party’s secretary general, told Spice FM that “Kenyans have given up on these people,” a reference to the ruling party, Kenya Kwanza.

He said “things are so bad” that inhabitants of Mount Kenya have concluded that they would get nothing out of Ruto’s government and decided to “organise ourselves differently” along with other Kenyans. 

Politicians from Mount Kenya have since held a conference called “Limuru III” in which they unveiled Haki, a coalition that brought together more than 26 political parties from the region.

There was a “realization” within the region, Kioni said, that if the people in Mount Kenya don’t act now, the government would not allow them in the future to “ever organize ourselves in a manner that we can make sense in this country.” 

On Wednesday, Kioni said that the country needed a “radical reform” and that the “executive, plus the legislature should give way, so that we can be able to get a new start.”

“We’re certain that we can’t be able to live any longer with William (Ruto) in power, with William and his Cabinet in office,” he said.

Ruto’s tolerance

If the recent demonstrations were to lead to a regime change, it would have been largely because of Ruto’s uncharacteristically lax approach toward his detractors.

For the nearly two-years he has been in power, Ruto, who’s known for his sharp wit and political acumen, has allowed things to fester, not taking his detractors’ resolve to stir the pot seriously — until all hell broke loose on June 25.

Ruto has apparently taken his eyes off the ball, assuming that winning an election fair and square would be enough guarantee to dissuade enemies from sabotaging his administration, even when his enemies strategized online and offline on how to bring his rule down.

Ruto has also spent a large portion of his time either roving the country, politicking, or knocking around the world, trying to raise the country’s profile on the international stage.

Ruto has, in the aggregate, spent several months either outside the country or outside his official residence at State House, frittering away a valuable time that could have been utilized to consolidate his administration, foil his rivals’ plots and launch counterattacks.

The country is now paying in blood and in billions of shillings for Ruto’s early political and strategic missteps.

The chaos that engulfed Kenya could have been avoided or its effects minimized if Ruto’s response to the public’s rejection of the Finance Bill was not plagued by indecisiveness and complacency or if he had met the youth’s demand early on and sat down with their representatives. 

When the youth’s demonstrations started, the government was initially dismissive, even derogatory, before later talking of their right to have their voice heard. Its response was short on concrete, timely actions that could have defused the tension and averted unnecessary deaths and destruction.

Consequences of riots

The on-again, off-again protests had the potential to worsen an already dire economic condition and sink the country into an abyss of a full-on revolution, even when there’s no guarantee that Kenya would have emerged better off.

In Africa, revolutions have a poor record of bringing about the prosperity and tranquility that many agitators envision.

It happened in Egypt, Tunisia and Sudan, where a civil war is now raging. Libya is a de facto failed state, where two rival governments are competing over the control of what was once a peaceful, united country. 

In Egypt and Tunisia, revolutions were particularly met with counter-revolutions that reversed the initial gains and brought back the old order. The two countries are now worse off than they were before the revolution. 

In Ethiopia, the Oromo uprising that began in 2014 and led to the removal of the Tigrayan-dominated administration has weakened the central authority in Addis Ababa.

Ethiopia’s more than 80 tribes are now jostling for power, a contestation that led to two years of conflict in Tigray region and later triggered or intensified the raging rebellions in Oromo and Amhara regions.

An extension of 2022 elections

The riots that tarnished or infiltrated the youth-led protests – which were well organized and had a clear message -- were no more than an extension of the August 2022 elections, whose outcome has irked a large segment of elites in Mount Kenya, a grouping informally referred to as the deep state.

Even though that clique grudgingly accepted Ruto’s victory, yet it has continued to personally traduce Ruto and his administration, one time faulting his economic policies and another time his foreign policies. 

Prof Ngugi wa Thiong’o, a renowned Kikuyu writer, has recently accused Ruto of “selling the country cheaply.”   

“You had agreed to become Nato’s errand boy in America’s struggle with Russia and China for access to resources of the continent,” he said, referring to the U.S. government’s decision to designate Kenya a non-member NATO ally.

Interestingly, while the declared aim of the protests was to shoot down the finance bill that proposed extra taxes and introduced new ones, the focus of the protesters has quickly shifted to Ruto’s rule and chants of “Ruto Must Go” have started to rend the air.  

Never before had the country’s opposition so vehemently called for the ouster of a democratically elected president, raising questions about the endgame of the anti-tax-induced agitations.

President Ruto said the protests were “infiltrated and hijacked by a group of organized criminals” and issued warnings to alleged financiers, organizers, orchestrators and abettors.”

“It is not in order or even conceivable that criminals pretending to be peaceful protesters can reign terror against the people, their elected representatives and the institutions established under our Constitution and expect to go scot-free,” Ruto said.

Messaging problem

Since he came to power in 2022, Ruto’s government has had a messaging problem.

Prior to his decision to withdraw the finance bill, Ruto hardly explained to the public what was at stake in a convincing manner. There was no coherent, detailed, well-articulated and persuasive message to win over the public either. 

In fact, the death of the finance bill was largely due to poor communications, as Ruto failed to persuade Kenyans that his efforts to raise revenue to avoid default was in the best interest of the country, which spends 61 shillings on debt service out of every 100 shillings it collects.

In an interview with three national TV stations, Ruto said the withdrawal of the finance bill would have “huge consequences” for the country, especially for teachers, farmers and local industries.

“We’ve gone back almost two years,” he said, adding that the country will now be forced to borrow a trillion shillings “to be able to run our government.”

“I have been working very hard to pull Kenya out of a debt trap,” he said.

During the protests, the Ruto administration also suffered a government-wide messaging paralysis. It was unable to react to the fast-moving developments and furnish the public with timely information and updates on the threat the protests pose to the country’s national security.

That blunder offered the opposition a chance to demand the President’s head and call for a snap election.

The current lull in the anti-government demonstrations, which had the hallmarks of a coup attempt, offers the President an opening to solidify his rule and take his enemies head-on, especially those who were accused of emptying the national coffers before the 2022 elections.

Live-and-let-live approach

Ruto, who’s already on the outs with his deputy Gachagua, must have realized that he has no option but to push back. 

His live-and-let-live approach toward officials of the former administration, some of whom were accused of being dollar billionaires, didn’t yield its desired result, as they appear determined to make his time in power miserable, and if possible, a one-term leader.

If the youth’s agitation has hammered one message home, it’s that President Ruto has fewer friends in the opposition. 

Former President Uhuru has asked Ruto to listen to Kenyans who elected him, saying it’s the “duty of leaders to listen to those they lead.” 

“Dear Kenyans, I stand with you and I ask our leadership to embrace dialogue and speak to the people and not at the people,” Uhuru said, reminding all that “Kenya is bigger than one of us,” a veiled dig at Ruto.

Opposition leader, Raila, whose campaign for the African Union’s top job is being funded by the government, has gone further and praised the youth that has been behind the anti-finance bill protests.

“The government has unleashed brute force on our country’s children and more seems to be on the way. We cannot allow that,” Raila said in a statement, claiming that the government’s tax policies are “stealing” the youth’s present and future. 

Eugene Wamalwa, the leader of the Democratic Action Party of Kenya, or DAP-K, has called on the entire Ruto government, which he called “dysfunctional,” to resign.

In their statements, these opposition figures avoided commenting on the desecration of the country’s Parliament building that was partly burnt, nor did they seem bothered by the country’s international image that was gravely damaged by the rioters’ actions.

The recent development in the country has made abundantly clear that the embers of the political war between Ruto on one hand and Raila and Uhuru on the other hand have not died down.

As Ruto’s second-year anniversary draws nearer, it appears, the opposition – be they Azimio or the leaderless youth movement -- is in a race against time to prevent the new administration from achieving any meaningful success.

Ruto said the government will “uphold its constitutional mandate to secure our nation and its development and shall treat every threat to our national security and integrity of our state as an existential danger to our Republic.”

The outcome of the war between Ruto and the opposition is likely to determine the country’s near future, and whether the head of state will be a one-term president or not. 

Ruto knows that the ongoing political intrigue is a sequel to the battle of wills that several years ago erupted between him and Uhuru, his former boss.

Luckily for him, he is now the president, while Uhuru is a private citizen, fighting to secure funds for his office from the Ruto administration.

It’s too early to say whether Ruto’s revenge will be served cold or instantly.

Duale said the government would soon name the individuals who “hired” the goons that killed, maimed and destroyed property during the protests.

“There’s no place for impunity in this country,” Duale said.