Kenya’s buzzing news outlets are often fierce competitors. But on Thursday they dismissed their competitive instincts to issue an urgent call for calm as Kenya sinks deeper into chaotic anti-government protests that have killed at least 31 people in recent weeks and pose the most serious challenge to President William Ruto’s nearly year-long rule.
“Save our country,” an identical banner headline read across the front pages of the Daily Nation, Standard and other major newspapers.
The joint article said Kenya risks falling into a “dark and dangerous abyss” if its leaders fail to resolve the simmering crisis that has destabilized one of Africa’s strongest democracies.
Police clashed with protesters on Thursday in the second of three days of planned nationwide demonstrations against soaring food and fuel prices and excessive tax hikes. Two people were killed on Thursday, according to local media, during protests in Kisumu, a western city and stronghold of the opposition. On Wednesday, six people in the country were killed in clashes when police fired live bullets and around 300 people were detained.
Clouds of tear gas and black smoke from burned tires drifted into the capital Nairobi and several other cities, where clashes between police and protesters forced businesses and schools to close on Wednesday. On Thursday, the police appeared to have the upper hand, and some shops and schools reopened.
The United Nations Office for Human Rights, citing reports that Kenyan police killed 23 people during protests last week, call for investigation into the “disproportionate use of force.” On Wednesday, protests broke out in 13 of Kenya’s 47 counties – fewer than last week, a Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The protests were led by Raila Odinga, the opposition leader defeated by Mr Ruto in the presidential election last August – a defeat he still refuses to formally accept, although election observers and Kenya’s Supreme Court have confirmed the results.
Since March, Mr. Odinga has periodically held large rallies accusing Mr. Ruto of electoral fraud and mismanagement of the economy. He’s tapping into the deep roots of public frustration over the growing cost of living, with the price of wheat up 30 percent and sugar up 60 percent in the past year.
“The president is very strict with us,” said Anne Gakoi, a basket dealer, at her roadside stall on the northern edge of Nairobi. She made a list of things that were now too expensive: sugar, cornstarch, her daughter’s school fees, sisal to make her basket.
Then Mr. Ruto passed an uncommon new tax to build more housing. “We can make our own money and build our own house,” she said. “He hasn’t been fair to us.”
But as Mr Odinga’s largely poor supporters, many of his Luo ethnic group, confront Kenya’s armed riot police on the streets, his representatives are making demands more narrowly focused on political interests, diplomats and analysts said in interviews. Mr. Odinga is seeking a number of concessions including a top position in the African Union.
Some in Mr Odinga’s team are looking for a new “handshake” – a reference to the political truce he agreed with the previous president, Uhuru Kenyatta, in 2018, which effectively neutralized the opposition in Kenya’s parliament for the next four years.
There was no sign of Mr Odinga this week, leading to much speculation on social media. On Wednesday, his daughter Winnie said in a Tweet that he is “fine”. Mr. Odinga’s aides have privately told Western officials that he has the flu.
Much of Kenya’s economic troubles are the product of global headwinds beyond Mr Ruto’s control, such as the war in Ukraine and rising interest rates. The president of Kenya, who was previously vice president, inherited a national debt that has quadrupled to $61 billion over the past decade.
But Mr Ruto also stoked public anger by offering harsh economic medicine to his supporters and taking a zero-tolerance stance against critics.
“Listen to me carefully,” Mr. Ruto said Friday in a speech in which he vowed to quell the protests. “You cannot use illegal, unconstitutional means to seek power in Kenya. Wait until 2027. I will beat you again.
Kenyan business and religious leaders, as well as foreign diplomats, said they had been in contact with both sides in recent days in an attempt to broker an agreement to end the protests. The specter of post-election clashes in 2007 and 2008, which left hundreds dead and nearly plunged the country into civil war, is looming large.
According to Kenya’s national statistics agency, the protests cost the country about $20 million a day, not counting foreign investments lost. While Kenya has long been seen as East Africa’s economic powerhouse and top tourist destination, some investors are now looking to neighboring Tanzania, which has been poor for decades, as a more attractive option.
At the heart of the protests is a tough new finance bill, signed into law by Mr Ruto last month, that includes a highly unpopular 1.5% tax on wage earners for the housing and jobs fund. A Kenyan court recently blocked the law, citing constitutional violations. Even so, Mr Ruto pushed for other measures, including doubling the fuel tax to 16% – a measure that made it difficult for his own voters.
During last year’s election, Mr. Ruto touted himself as the champion of Kenya’s “hustlers” – young people who, like him, come from humble backgrounds and are trying to rise up. But now many of those hustlers, feeling betrayed, are taking to the streets.
Kenya’s editors wrote on Thursday: “We should never take it for granted that we can never lead to genocide or full-blown civil war. “We all have to step back and take a very, very long look at ourselves.”
