The Kenyan security force currently has a ton of work in the process of trying to contain protesters whom the opposition has been rallying against the current establishment.
This kind of publicity of defiance to government is something that Raila loves. Postulating the consciousness of having the people’s backing is boosting Azimio to take things to a whole new level of messy. You wouldn’t blame a man who has sought power for decades and had assumed that 2022 was going to be his year but again failed.
Raila is not monologuing because, as we predicted on this platform, the risen cost of living was going to buoy more Kenyans to latch onto his juggernaut. These supporters, though many are diehard Azimio supporters coming out in religious solidarity with Raila, have real issues they are raising.
The demonstrations Azimio had organized initially did not gain momentum as they were viewed as a recurrence of Raila’s expression of frustration after yet again bottling his enterprise for power.
Of course the Finance Bill, which we had equated to a referendum on this column, made many a Kenyan view the Kenya Kwanza government as insensitive and detached from the people’s needs.
Ruto’s government came in on the very platform of making life bearable for the commoners. It is strange that the elite economic council the president put together was unable to design a roadmap that would at least not push things to this extreme for the president by proposing raising of taxes.
It is not possible for the Kenya Kwanza administration to work out a diversion from the realities as they are currently running government in trust of the people who are getting more agitated. It is possible to push back against the demonstrations with brute force and good strategy, but for how long can that happen? Coming out strongly to show that Kenya Kwanza is also popular on the ground or that the people are still with them is a useful strategy, but time runs out.
It is not possible for the supporters of Kenya Kwanza to stroke egos any more, the truth must be said to those who make decisions. It was extreme naivety for the Kenya Kwanza economic council to have recommended raising of taxes as a solution to the economic challenges Kenya is going through.
The attitude of David Ndii, Moses Kuria and others smirks off egotism. Even as they ward off Azimio with avowals that seek to get under their skin, viewers who happen to be under the weight of the high cost of living see that as an affront on them in real terms.
The president might be right that Kenya must reduce borrowing so as to stem the ballooning debt, but which one should have come first? Is it the need to reduce the cost of living or to make changes that start to reduce the national debt notwithstanding what the people are going through? Uhuru Kenyatta’s era was difficult already.
The fact that David Ndii and others cannot find a solution even if as an amalgamation of the various dimensions should be proof to the president that he has the wrong hands on deck. The lack of clarity in the economic approach should be totally unacceptable to the president as it is a clear political noose.
Obviously President Ruto wants to deliver. He is president at such a time as this, and he will want to make it count. Therefore, the policies developed by the government should be ones that work. In the knowledge based era of today, available theories and frameworks in all areas of study, including the economic field, are either proven winners or failed approaches.
We surely would not expect that Ndii and others would be reinventing the wheel, but that they will have learnt from various settings to be best fit to run our economy. As we stand, they are either overthinking or just lazy. Jingoistic approaches of seeking to outtalk those who criticize the government’s approaches will not work anymore. Kenyans desire solutions.
Even at this time when the government’s popularity will be going down as we projected on this column mainly because of the rising cost of living, it would surprise Azimio to realize that level minded Kenyans may still not regard them a better alternative.
It is not possible that the current upheaval can lead to the kind of revolution Azimio luminaries have been alluding to. While insanity makes people very unpredictable, there is a level of fatalism which many Kenyans developed after years of raw disappointment by our politicians.
The word mostly on the street is that nobody should die for a politician. Many Kenyans are conscious of the fact that Raila is fighting for power and they will remember his support for Uhuru Kenyatta’s government when the cost of living was also rising.
Some see a revolution as a possibility when they recall the Arab spring, but in a dominantly Christian country that Kenya is, the only possibility of a force that would take down government or lead to vicious chaos would probably be one designed on the platform of ethnicity.
The Christian leadership in Kenya is in itself divided, if for example one listens to Catholic Bishop Muheria and Deliverance Church’s Dr. Mark Kariuki. Muheria went to the extreme of calling the president names, while Mark has been calling for sanity and tolerance.
On the other hand, Kenyans long refused to go down the road of ethnic division. Our politicians are mostly de facto tribal chieftains and those without the support of their kinsmen always fail. This is why protests will be more vicious in Kibera and Mathare where Raila’s community the Luo’s are dominant.
Ethnicity is the number one factor that determines and cements political positions and which fuels political activity in Kenya. While Kalonzo is a cog Azimio, for instance, the Kamba have a gentle disposition especially in national politics and protests in Ukambani have been hard coming despite the one at Mlolongo last week. The only way that the protests can be stronger is if Ruto and Kenya Kwanza ignore the need to provide some respite to the people and continue to be isolated as insensitive.
Other chilling fears would be the involvement of al Shabaab taking advantage of the political situation to make things worse. This sounds like a wild thought, but we all remember October 14th 2010 when two blasts rocked a political rally organized to oppose the proposed constitution.
It was interesting that such attacks, the nature that Al Shabaab carries out, would happen at a political rally. Our politicians can be hasty. These are things some people could do to exacerbate the current situation. Something needs to be done to stop the protests.
Ruto can provide an economic roadmap that works for Kenyans and he will get Raila off his back and make his reputation among the people –which he had during campaigns- whole again. Azimio will continue to go after him with all they have because it’s about their political survival considering that they lack control in both Houses of Parliament. He can order his economic team back to the drawing board and even release the more difficult and opinionated of them since Kenya has many gifted people.
