Something Big Just Happened in Kenya
President William Ruto knows he’s in trouble. A few weeks ago Mr. Ruto was barricaded inside his official compound in Nairobi, Kenya, while thousands of young Kenyans marched on the streets. Since then, nationwide protests that started over a potential tax hike on basic goods and services have evolved into something much bigger: a demand for Mr. Ruto’s ouster — and an end to a culture in which Kenya’s political class enriches itself at the expense of the social and economic needs of its citizens.
From the start, this movement felt different from other protests. Most of the demonstrators were part of the country’s young majority, spreading information about where and when to show up on TikTok, Instagram and WhatsApp. No central political figure or unifying political party stood behind the crowds, and no common ideology united them beyond anger at the government’s plan to increase taxes while social services collapsed, public university fees soared and an unemployment crisis deepened. Even as the street action has faded, more Kenyans are now openly following graft cases on social media, circulating excerpts from the constitution and calling and texting legislators.
This marks a seismic shift in a nation where young people have been accused of political apathy. During general elections in 2022, most young Kenyans didn’t even register to vote. Now, for the first time since the country adopted a new constitution in 2010, the country’s youth are a critical part of a movement in which people are risking their lives to fight for the democratic gains they have been promised. It is clear Mr. Ruto senses his tenure is in danger; on Thursday he sacked all but one of his cabinet secretaries, bowing to public pressure.
Mr. Ruto is a protégé of Daniel arap Moi, the dictator who ruled Kenya between 1978 and 2002. From the beginning of his political career, Mr. Ruto appeared to share his mentor’s disregard for democracy. Some of his early political work involved organizing teams of university students to work for Mr. Moi during their school holidays; he later helped disrupt opposition rallies during the 1992 elections, Kenya’s first multiparty voting in decades.
When Mr. Moi left office, Mr. Ruto became a key member of the opposition, slowly building up his reputation for a presidential run. In 2007 he sought his party’s nomination for the presidency but lost in the primaries. Waves of violence erupted in Kenya after those polls, killing more than 1,200 people and displacing 600,000 from their homes. Mr. Ruto was one of six Kenyans indicted by the International Criminal Court in 2011, on charges that he had a role in the violence, which he has denied. He was accused of “murder, deportation or forcible transfer of population and persecution.”
Since then, Mr. Ruto has fought the democratic reforms that millions of Kenyans support. In 2010 he opposed the country’s new constitution, which sought to reform the political structure that enabled Mr. Moi’s dictatorship, give rights to people who had previously been disenfranchised, introduce new laws to prevent graft by government officials and prevent those with criminal convictions from assuming political office.
