Kenya’s boisterous news outlets are normally fierce rivals. But on Thursday, they put aside their competitive instincts to issue an urgent appeal for calm as Kenya spiraled deeper into chaotic anti-government demonstrations that have claimed the lives of at least 29 people in recent weeks and represented the biggest challenge yet to President William Ruto’s nearly year-old rule.
“Let’s save our country,” read an identical banner headline on the front pages of the Daily Nation, Standard and other major newspapers.
Kenya risks falling into “a dark and dangerous abyss,” the joint article said, if its leaders fail to resolve a boiling crisis that has destabilized one of Africa’s strongest democracies.
Police clashed with protesters in Nairobi on Thursday in the second of three days of planned nationwide protests against rising food and fuel prices and hefty tax hikes. Police, sometimes using live fire, killed at least six people in clashes on Wednesday and arrested about 300, including a prominent opposition politician who was chased away to a police station 60 miles from the capital.
Clouds of tear gas and black smoke from burning tires drifted over the capital Nairobi and several other cities, where fighting between police and protesters caused businesses and schools to close on Wednesday. On Thursday, the police seemed to gain the upper hand and some shops and schools reopened.
The United Nations Human Rights Office, citing reports that Kenyan police killed 23 people in protests last week, called for an investigation into the “disproportionate use of force”. Protests broke out in 13 of Kenya’s 47 counties on Wednesday — fewer than last week, said a Western diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
The protests are led by Raila Odinga, the opposition leader who was defeated by Ruto in last August’s presidential election.
Since March, Mr. Odinga has periodically held mass rallies to accuse Mr. Ruto of electoral fraud and mismanagement of the economy. He taps into a deep well of public frustration over the rising cost of living, with wheat prices up 30 percent and sugar up 60 percent over the past year.
“The president is strict with us,” said Anne Gakoi, a basket merchant, at her roadside stall on the northern outskirts of Nairobi. She picked up a list of things that were too expensive now: sugar, cornmeal, her daughter’s tuition, the sisal to make her baskets.
Then Mr. Ruto pushed through an unpopular new tax to build more homes. “We can make our own money and build our own houses,” she said. “He’s not fair to us.”
But while Mr Odinga’s largely impoverished supporters, many from his Luo ethnic group, confronted armed Kenyan riot police in the streets, his representatives are privately making demands more focused on political self-interest, diplomats and analysts said in interviews. Mr. Odinga is seeking a number of concessions, including a top position at the African Union.
Some on Mr Odinga’s team are seeking another “handshake” – a reference to the political truce he agreed with the previous president, Uhuru Kenyatta, in 2018, which effectively neutered Kenya’s parliamentary opposition for the next four years.
There is no trace of Mr. Odinga this week, sparking speculation on social media. His daughter Winnie arrived on Wednesday said in a Tweet that he was “fine”. Mr Odinga’s aides have privately told Western officials that he has the flu.
Many of Kenya’s economic problems are the product of global headwinds beyond Ruto’s control, such as the war in Ukraine and rising interest rates. The Kenyan president, formerly vice president, inherited a national debt that quadrupled to $61 billion over the past decade.
But Mr. Ruto also inflamed popular anger by administering harsh economic drugs to his own supporters and adopting an uncompromising stance on critics.
“Listen to me carefully,” Mr. Ruto said in a speech Friday in which he vowed to quell the protests. “You cannot use extrajudicial, extra-constitutional means to seek power in Kenya. Wait for 2027. I will beat you again.
Kenyan religious and business leaders, as well as foreign diplomats, say they have reached out to both sides in recent days in an attempt to broker a deal to end the protests. The specter of the post-election clashes of 2007 and 2008, which left hundreds dead and nearly plunged the country into civil war, looms large.
According to Kenya’s National Bureau of Statistics, the protests have cost the country about $20 million every day, not counting lost foreign investment. While Kenya has long been seen as East Africa’s economic powerhouse and top tourist destination, some investors are now looking to neighboring Tanzania, its impoverished neighbor for decades, as a more attractive option.
The focus of the protests is a harsh new finance law, signed last month by Mr Ruto, that includes a highly unpopular 1.5 percent levy on salaried workers for a housing and employment fund. A Kenyan court recently blocked the law for constitutional irregularities. Yet Mr Ruto pressed ahead with other measures, including doubling the fuel tax to 16 percent – a move that hit his own voters hard.
In last year’s election, Mr Ruto portrayed himself as the champion of Kenya’s ‘hustlers’ – young people who, like him, came from humble backgrounds and strived to get ahead. But now many of those scammers, feeling betrayed, are taking to the streets.
“We should never assume that we can never end in full-blown genocide or civil war,” the Kenyan editors wrote Thursday. “We all need to step back and take a good look at ourselves.”
