President William Ruto is at the point President Mwai Kibaki was at in 2005 after he massively lost the constitutional referendum.
The protests and the storming of Parliament symbolise a withdrawal of confidence by the people Ruto leads.
And despite his concessions – scrapping the Finance Bill and promising to engage with activists – the people are hearing none of it. They want to see blood from government.
They want resignations and heads to roll.
The Finance Bill gave the people a convenient pathway to vent their anger and so it is important for the President to understand the issue is broader than the Bill.
I think the President can turn the tide and assuage the anger by making drastic populist interventions.
For example, I would advise the President to dissolve his Cabinet and start afresh, just as Kibaki did.
Fire some people and don’t spare those who have shown incompetence or have been tainted with corruption.
The new cabinet should have people who are competent and above board.
Going forward, the governance style should also change by listening to the people, rather than imposing and railroading through what you believe to be right.
Also, I hope the President meant all the things he was saying on Wednesday night. He needs to make massive spending cuts so people don’t see a huge chunk of their money serving the interests and augmenting the emoluments of the elite.
Instead, put those monies into pro-people programmes that help alleviate the pressure on the people.
It does not make sense for the President to keep preaching austerity to us, only for him and his people to keep appearing before us wearing expensive watches and finery. His people drive expensive cars while others splurge loads of cash, as the people grow poorer and don’t have enough to eat.
This has bred great disaffection by the public.
The President over-promised benefits to the hustlers during his campaign, which have proven futile to implement.
For the last two years, instead of benefiting from Ruto’s promise, the hustlers have only been reading media reports of expensive jets, corrupts deals, scandals and people growing richer and more arrogant.
The President should also reconstitute IEBC swiftly so the people can have a mechanism to showing their displeasure with their MPs, should they wish to recall a few.
Constitutional lawyer and governance expert spoke to Star
