Protests have rocked Kenya since June, opposing a widely unpopular finance bill that would have meant dramatic price hikes on basic food items. Despite a brutal police crackdown on protests resulting in over 50 deaths and dozens of disappearances, the president was forced to withdraw the bill in less than two days. The protest wave has been largely led by young people, many protesting for the first time.
Before the current president William Ruto took office, Kenyans were already struggling with high inflation and unemployment that has made day to day life unbearable for many. Ruto was voted into office because of his promises to lower the cost of living, implement economic relief programs, and to uplift who he referred to as “hustlers”, hard-working people in the informal economy. Instead, he cut food, fuel, and electricity subsidies, increasing costs for working and young people. Ruto’s 2024 Finance Bill was the last straw. This bill would have further raised the cost of many basic goods, including a 16% tax on bread and a 25% tax on cooking oil.
Young Kenyans in particular have been suffering the brunt of the cost of living crisis. Their job prospects are bleak. The majority of unemployed people are recent college graduates, finding they stand no chance at securing work unless they come from wealthy families that can pull the strings for them. Ruto campaigned on the promise of creating a million jobs, but the roughly one million young people graduating from schools in Kenya every year have not seen the results.
The protests correctly see Ruto as allied with massive debt-collecting banks like the IMF and Western imperialism. While increasing food costs to pay the country’s debt, senators pay themselves upwards of $80,000 per year, compared to the $2,000 the average Kenyan earns. Ruto himself is one of Kenya’s richest men, and his cabinet is one of the wealthiest and most unpopular groups of politicians in the country’s history. The protests are fighting to drive out Ruto and his whole government. Ruto dismissed nearly his whole cabinet under the pressure of the height of protests, but later just reappointed many of them!
The protest movement has united around the slogan “leaderless, partyless and tribeless”. This new generation of protesters is rejecting the historic ethnic divisions introduced during colonization by the British in order to aid their plundering of Kenya’s resources, which the Kenyan ruling class has continued. And this time, the traditional opposition parties play no role in the protests. History has shown these to be the same sort of false promises Ruto made on his campaign trail.
But there is a downside to the movement’s lack of leadership. The Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 – the largest protest movement in the history of the U.S. to date – hold an important lesson: week after week of heroic street protests alone will not be enough to win significant or lasting change. The bill was defeated by the mass revolt, but the government, big business, the military and imperialism remain. Derrick Chauvin and other racist police aren’t “bad apples” – they’re part of a rotten system. Similarly, Ruto and other politicians are part of a corrupt clique that serves a vital role in capitalist society. The vast sums these politicians steal from taxpayers pale in comparison to the billions they are helping foreign capitalists extract from working people. No matter who holds office, if they support capitalism, they will be beholden to the International Monetary Fund and other debtors.
Throughout August, weekly protests have continued in Kenya’s capital Nairobi, but as time goes on they have grown smaller. Democratic decision-making structures are needed to debate the way forward and to organize future struggle. Demands should go beyond merely replacing Ruto, and point toward replacing the system as a whole. System change will require the wider working class to get organized in the streets and in their workplaces. Labor unions will need to join the struggle, along with small farmers who comprise a majority of Kenyan workers. Unemployed youth, workers, and farmers are all subject to the same abuse at the hands of the political elite in order to serve the interests of local and foreign capitalists. The working masses need their own political voice, a workers’ party to fight the capitalists and the IMF.
Last year, the Ruto administration announced its plans to address Kenya’s debt crisis by selling off 35 state-owned companies. This would dismantle essential industries that millions depend on and worsen unemployment across the country, all in a bid to generate more profit to repay debt. Workers and youth should fight back against any privatizations. In order for any national industry to adequately serve the needs of working people, however, it will need to be democratically planned by workers, to ensure that Kenya’s vast natural resources are used to improve the lives of ordinary people rather than to let the rich get richer.
The anger manifesting into protest in Kenya is not an isolated phenomenon. The protests in Kenya were a spark that inspired hundreds of thousands to take to the streets all across Nigeria in #EndBadGovernance protests in August that were met with heavy repression. Days before, young Ugandans inspired by the example of Kenya protested government corruption as well. Governments in other countries have reason to fear further spread of the protests.
From economic crisis to climate change, bleak prospects for the future are something that young people in every country are feeling more and more. The capitalist system has got to go. Replacing it with an economy that actually serves the interests of ordinary people, a socialist economy, is an international task for all working people and youth, who have more in common with one another across national lines than they do with CEOs and politicians in their own country.