Ruto's headache as restless youth, bold rulings disrupt State agenda

For the last two years, President William Ruto has faced setbacks ranging from social, political and legal hiccups that have hampered the implementation of his election promises to Kenyans.

A litany of petitions filed in court has slammed the brakes on proposed Kenya Kwanza programmes while widespread protests by Generation Z forced the President to dismiss his Cabinet and withdraw the Finance Bill 2024.

Further, the Head of State has been forced to share a slice of his government with the opposition in a bid to calm rising political temperatures.

Even in areas where he would have expected little or no resistance, Ruto’s UDA has been dogged by leadership wrangles. The internal rivalry has culminated into violence despite the President’s earlier assertion that chaos and mayhem was a preserve of ODM.

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To date, the ruling party’s grassroots elections are in limbo thanks to the emergence of factions between the President and his Deputy Rigathi Gachagua that have threatened to tear the party down the middle.

This comes at a time when the fate of UDA Secretary-General will be determined by the courts after the National Executive Council (NEC) removed Cleophas Malala and replaced him with East African Legislative Assembly MP Hassan Omar in an interim capacity. Malala secured court orders to stop the NEC meeting but he was kicked out as secretary general.

Sidelined

As UDA grapples with the leadership squabbles, the President seems to be at war with his deputy Gachagua over political ideologies concerning taxation and the sharing out of national resources.

The DP’s push for a one-man one-vote one-shilling mantra and his assertion that the sharing of resources should be based on a shareholding model, where the region with the hugest number of votes should first be considered on development matters has sparked controversy.

In October last year, Ruto told Nyanza residents to disregard statements that they would be sidelined in development because of not voting for the Kenya Kwanza regime.

“Nyanza people do not be told you are not part of the government because this government is for all Kenyans and you all pay taxes. I will ensure that no region will be sidelined on matters of development at the expense of politics,” he said.

“It is primitive and backward for anybody or anyone to imagine that any region of Kenya cannot get development on account of how they voted. That is not right, not correct,” Ruto added.

But the unapologetic Gachagua who chose Nandi in Rift Valley to fire back: “I have no apologies; I am unapologetic to demand and to insist that those who believed in William Ruto and supported him have every right to benefit immensely from his government. I have no apology, at all, and if that can bring a problem so be it.”

But as the two have been squabbling, the leaderless, partyless and tribeless Gen Z continue to give the President sleepless nights as they push for ‘Ruto must go’ slogan.

Despite the President withdrawing the Finance Bill 2024, dissolving his Cabinet, announcing intention to scrap 47 parastatals, and promising to undertake radical measures to address their demands, Gen Z, are still on his neck.

The youth still want the President to operate on a lean government, audit civil servants and scrap Women Representative position among other demands.

“(We need to) reduce MP salaries to Sh200,000, arrest rogue police who shot protesters, remove Constituency Development Fund (CDF) from MPs, reduce ministries to, at most, 15, complete (the persecution and determination of) corruption cases within three months and not years, and arrest and fire corrupt governors,” Degrata posted on X signing off with the trending #RutoMustGo. 

This is not all. Some youth are unhappy with embassies which drag visa processing for months. Others are calling for audit of civil servants. Yet others want the Jubilee regime to be held accountable for all the monies that disappeared under their watch as a clean-up exercise is backtracked to independence, if possible. 

The many battles brought about the Gen Z have not stopped the litigious petitioners to file cases targeting Ruto’s programmes some of which have been ruled in favour of the applicants dealing the Kenya Kwanza administration mortal blows.

At least four court decisions have affected Ruto’s ambitious Universal Health Coverage agenda and housing levy. The Attorney General’s team has been kept busy defending the government’s laws, where in most cases they have lost.

The latest setback is the Court of Appeal’s declaration that the Finance Act 2023 is unconstitutional, with the three-judge bench ruling that the process leading to its enactment was flawed as it failed to consider public views on various sections.

Aggrieved by the court’s decision, National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung’wah on Thursday on the floor of the House accused the judges of ‘judicial activism

“Because parliament is the law making body in the country if the Judiciary desires to be the law makers they have the options of resigning from the judicial seats and come and run for parliamentary seats and come make laws in this house but we can’t have situation where the judiciary wants to make laws from the bench.  It has never happened anywhere the world,” Ichung’wah said.

Another Ruto pet project; the affordable housing programme where he projected to build over 250,000 units every year faced intense opposition due to the move to deduct 1.5 per cent of the gross income of salaried workers in Kenya to fund the project’s base capital.

On November 28 2023, the High Court declared the housing levy unconstitutional, stating that it was discriminatory against salaried workers.

The government quickly moved to enact a stand-alone Affordable Housing Act, which took effect in March 2024. However, the new law is now subject to another court challenge.

On July 12 2024, a three-judge bench comprising Justices Alfred Mabeya, Robert Limo, and Fridah Mugambi declared three health laws unconstitutional: The Social Health Insurance Act 2023, the Primary Healthcare Act 2023, and the Digital Health Act 2023.

These laws form part of President Ruto’s Universal Health Coverage agenda. The judges argued that the laws were passed hurriedly without proper public participation.

The halting of the Maisha Namba, a unique personal identification number assigned to the Maisha Card, a third-generation digital identity card on July 25, adversely affected Ruto’s plan to leverage technology for service delivery.

The court also suspended the planned implementation of the National Master Population Register after the Garissa-based lobby group Haki Na Sheria challenged the rollout, citing concerns about personal data protection.

On June 2, the President sustained attacks on Judiciary, accusing it of sabotaging government agenda.

“Our Judiciary, we respect you but judicial impunity by corrupt judicial officers must stop in Kenya...we’ll stop it and whatever it takes,” he said.

And despite his publicly professed respect for the Judiciary, he did not hold back on discussing issues that are substantively before court and where his administration has recently taken knocks.

Amid anti-government protests, the President appointed a task force to conduct a forensic audit of the public debt but the High Court has since stopped the task force from executing its mandate after two petitioners argued that it will usurp the role of the Auditor General.

Populist agendas

Floods and drought have also added on to the long list of Ruto’s many battles to secure livelihoods and ensure food security.

Political analysts believe the President started on a wrong footing while others say that he may learn from the hiccups to build a solid legacy and his re-election strategy especially after his obedience to the courts affirmed that he is a respecter of democracy.

“The President ascended to the high office as a result of populist agendas which had no legal basis, the problem however is lack of concurrence from experts exacerbated by the ‘Yes Sir’ Parliament which okays everything from the President without question,” says Charles Njoroge

Other pundits feel the President may ride on the challenges to build his legacy.

“The President seems to be taking advantage of the situation to correct some errors he made while forming the government and embracing all Kenyans and by respecting the court orders, he presents himself as a man who has respect for the rule of law. Towards his reelection campaign, he may be the last man laughing,” says Mohammed Njau, a youth leader.