NAIROBI (Halbeeg News) – Kenya was braced for fresh anti-government protests from Wednesday, the latest in a series of violent demonstrations over recent weeks that have left scores of people dead.
The country’s opposition, led by former prime minister Raila Odinga, has called its supporters on to the streets for three days of protest against the new taxes signed into law last month by his rival, President William Ruto.
More than a dozen people have been killed in protests that erupted this month, according to the Kenya Human Rights Commission, which has accused police of using “excessive force” in its response to the rallies. More than 300 people have also been arrested.
Odinga, who has been pushing protests since losing last year’s election to Ruto, has accused the government of trampling on democracy and failing to help households cope with the surge in inflation that was partly caused by Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine last year. Ruto’s allies say Odinga is sour at yet another ballot box defeat.
Odinga has entered and lost Kenya’s past five presidential elections but managed to negotiate senior positions in government with those in power after periods of unrest.
“The conflict we shall experience on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday will be a conflict between William Ruto and the people of Kenya,” said Enoch Wambua, an opposition senator and Odinga ally.
Ruto said to Odinga: “You cannot seek leadership of Kenya through bloodshed, death and destruction of Kenyan property. There’s no way you can change Kenya by taking the path you’ve chosen.”
The president, who won the election with a pledge to help marginalised Kenyans, has insisted the east African country needed to raise taxes to balance the state finances that have been badly strained by soaring debt repayments and low revenue collection. His Kenya Kwanza coalition has introduced new levies on fuel and housing as part of its financial bill that has been frozen by the courts. The party of Odinga has accused Ruto’s government of being out of touch.
“In Kenya Kwanza’s view, the cost of living is not so high as to warrant protests. Kenya Kwanza doesn’t know how angry and hungry Kenyans are,” it said this week. An editorial in Tuesday’s Daily Nation newspaper warned that “more than 50mn Kenyans are at the mercy of two gentlemen”.
It read: “Odinga may have an army of diehard followers, but this does not give him carte blanche to cause anarchy and make this country ungovernable. Ruto may have won the presidential vote but he did not win the right to lord it over Kenyans.”
The UN has expressed deep concern at the “widespread violence, and allegations of unnecessary or disproportionate use of force, including the use of firearms, by police during protests in Kenya”.
A group of western ambassadors, including from the US and UK, echoed those fears on Tuesday, as they criticised the “high levels of violence, including the use of live rounds and the destruction of property, during the recent demonstrations”. Kenya has a long history of political violence, notably after the elections in 2007 and 2017 when 1,200 and 100 people were killed respectively. Financial Times
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