For years, Kenya has enjoyed one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa, but after a sweeping set of steep tax increases were passed by parliament, to combat the ballooning national debt and avoid crippling default, the nation has been roiled by days of civil unrest and deadly riots. Then this week, after nearly two-dozen protesters were killed in a march in Nairobi, Kenyan President William Ruto announced he would not sign into law the contentious tax bill.
Having listened "keenly to the people of Kenya who have said loudly that they want nothing to do with this, I concede," he said on Wednesday. Although muted, anti-government protests have continued in Kenya despite Ruto's abrupt flip.
'It pains me that we had to wait' Ruto's decision not to sign Kenya's tax bill is a "major victory" for the "youth-led protest movement" that has morphed from "online condemnations of tax rises into mass rallies demanding a political overhaul," Reuters said. The president has "scuppered a great deal of goodwill," said Kenyan analyst Nanjala Nyabola to The New York Times. Although Ruto very well "might survive this moment, he has pushed Kenya into such deep, uncharted territory."
Ruto's announcement rejecting the tax bill "should have come earlier," Kenyan analyst Herman Manyora said to CNN. "He has done today what he should have done two days ago" to avoid this week's deaths. "It pains me that we had to wait."
"Some protesters have turned their attention to Ruto's resignation and are calling for the president to step down," Semafor said. Ruto "hasn't fired a single thief in his cabinet," said activist and protest leader Boniface Mwangi on X. "Even this 'reduced budget' will go into his people's pockets."
The 'Zakayo' president Since his election in 2022, Ruto has been plagued by allegations of financial mismanagement and dishonesty, said the BBC. In anti-Ruto circles, the president is referred to mockingly as "Zakayo," the Swahili word for the "biblical figure Zacchaeus, who is portrayed in the Christian holy book as a greedy tax collector."
It's a term Ruto himself has embraced, if only partially in jest. Given that, why would he reject his tax bill now? "I don't believe it is genuine," said Willis Okumu, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, to Al Jazeera. "I think he is just buying time." |