When he said Kenyans were judging him rather harshly during a televised interview last Monday, President William Ruto must have had the ‘Ruto must go’ chants at the back of his mind.
Dr Ruto was the portrait of an optimist who believed he would achieve the lofty promises he made to Kenyans as he campaigned to be president. In the interim, things were mostly working fine.
The Head of State was an image of desperation, too. Despite what he thought was making the best of the cards handed to him, the substantial debt burden inherited from former President Uhuru Kenyatta, a struggling economy, and a populace weighed down by a high cost of living, Ruto, seemingly, could not do right by significant sections of the youth.
Youthful critics have sustained their anti-Ruto campaign on social media and social events. Whenever the Head of State graces a TV interview, thousands spam media stations seeking hosts to ask Ruto when “he would stop lying.”
The Commander-in-Chief finds himself under, perhaps, more scrutiny than his four predecessors, owing to technological advancements. Social media has presented a platform for dissent as it has an opportunity for interaction between the leaders and the led.
At the height of last year’s youth-led uprising over proposals to hike taxes, Ruto seemed to appreciate the power of this tool that is at the disposal of many Kenyans. He engaged disgruntled Kenyans on X, promising to reform the Executive.
Indeed, he would follow his word by sacking most of his Cabinet (only Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi and the Secretary to the Cabinet, Mercy Wanjau, survived the purge). However, he quickly recycled most of them and brought on board the Opposition, handing them five Cabinet slots, a move that betrayed his half-hearted commitment to addressing issues.
The President has somewhat come out as running an endless experiment in organising and running his government, evidenced by his evolving promises and periodic shuffles of Cabinet Secretaries that he said he would continue to do whenever necessary.
Gitile Naituli, a professor of leadership and management, said Kenyans were judging the Head of State “appropriately” given the many broken promises.
“The problem is that he treats Kenyans like fools. He does not remember what he said yesterday, and he mostly says things that are not correct. The Murang’a Governor (Irung’u Kang’ata) that everyone is praising has worked the same period as Ruto, who is doing little,” said Prof Naituli.
Over the course of two and a half years he has occupied the presidency, Ruto has hardly done himself any favours in regard to the respect for the rule of law, hence the must-go chants, as they have since been known, which stem from public discontent over a seemingly broken system that government critics accuse the State of lacking the goodwill to solve.
This broken system is manifest in the flagrant disregard of human rights and civil liberties, as well as attempts to stifle dissent, through muzzling oversight bodies and, forcefully, through security agencies. Ruto’s most glaring political failure has been his apparent disdain for dissent.
In the last few months, the President has received the most criticism over a spate of killings and abductions targeting protesters and online critics. His administration has mostly denied involvement in the deaths of nearly 60 Kenyans killed during the protests and threw the ball into the court of security agencies, which also played the fool.
Theirs, the Executive and State security agencies, has been an unholy alliance that has ensured little or no accountability. In 2023, the Opposition, then led by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, staged protests which resulted in the deaths of more than 70 people, allegedly at the hands of the police. To date, there has been little in terms of holding the authorities accountable, exposing possible cover-up enabled by the powers that be.
Stay informed. Subscribe to our newsletter
If there had been any suspicion that the security agencies were possibly acting under instruction from the Executive to violently suppress the anti-Ruto agitation, then the recent coordinated involvement of top security officials in politics fueled them further.
On Tuesday, Inspector General of Police Douglas Kanja addressed Ruto’s rally in Kieni, Nyeri, which was days after Chief of Defence Forces General Charles Kahariri and National Intelligence Service Director-General Noordin Haji made what were criticized widely as political remarks. Gen Kahariri warned against the must-go chants, with Haji urging Kenyans against divisive politics.
Their involvement raises questions about Ruto’s involvement in independent State agencies and whether he plans to have them in his grip. That is despite his pre-election pledge that he would not ‘weaponise’ the criminal justice system.
“What should Kenyans think when the police are killing the youth? What should they think about him calling officials he hired incompetent?” Naituli posed.
Ruto initially seemed to walk the talk on non-interference with independent institutions when he granted the National Police Service financial autonomy, but seemingly stopped at that. On Friday, he appeared to endorse the idea that top security agents could engage in politics, masking them as part of nation-building.
“People want to vilify the Inspector General that he came to a meeting where we were serving the public. The IG is here because I am on a development tour and in that process, we also have police housing units. It is proper for me to hand over this building to the IG,”,’ Ruto said in Tharaka Nithi.
Kanja addressed a political rally, asking the public whether they were “happy to see the President,” which the Law Society of Kenya faulted as a veiled endorsement of the Head of State, demanding that Kanja resign if he cannot apologise for his actions.
Ruto has been accused of stifling other independent institutions, like Parliament, which he has largely succeeded in controlling.
Makueni Senator Dan Maanzo says Ruto’s apparent quest for total control is owed to him “thinking that he is the law.”
“He never believed in the Constitution and that is why he is running the government by Executive orders. He has captured the army, the intelligence service, and the police and is intimidating institutions. Chief Justice Martha Koome recently complained about the Judiciary’s budget being too low,” said Maanzo.
Ruto has been accused of trying to establish a similar dominance in the Judiciary, which has quashed some of his government’s controversial policies. There have been claims that petitions seeking the removal of Supreme Court judges were backed by the State.
“The President pronounced himself before me many times that, as President, he needs to manage the electoral cycle from the IEBC (Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission) all the way to the Supreme Court,” former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua said in February.
Corruption, too, is fueling public anger. The Kenya Kwanza administration has witnessed several scandals in the brief stint it has been in power. This is despite assurances by Ruto that he intends to fight corruption. As he campaigned for the presidency, Ruto said he would establish a State capture inquiry within 30 days, a promise he broke.
On Friday, former Public Service Cabinet Secretary Justin Muturi accused Ruto, without evidence, of being at the centre of major deals for personal gain.
“The first thing he told me was that, I don’t know if he was trying to entice me, any government contract above Sh5 billion must be approved by the AG (Attorney-General),” Muturi said Friday about conversations between himself and Ruto leading up to his appointment to head the State Law Office, which he implied the Head of State intended to use to see through multi-billion-shilling personal deals.
Maanzo said the government had proven uncommitted towards fighting graft, accusing it of “budgeting corruption.’
“It was revealed that everything in the government is calculated towards favouring the President. It was clear that he would not fight corruption from the start because he appointed ministers who were implicated in corruption,” said the Makueni senator.
The perception of deeply entrenched corruption has been fanned by the public display of opulence by allies of the President and members of his Cabinet, a mockery of the Head of State’s call for austerity.
“The President does not drink whatever he preaches, and Kenyans are against this pretense from the elites who seem more interested in personal gain,” said Charles Ng’ang’a, who teaches at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology.
Amid all the struggles, Ruto, a man previously hailed as a political genius, has struggled with a subject he was thought to know like the back of his hand. Even though his handshake with Raila has bought him some stability, most things around him seem to be crumbling.
He is struggling to hold on to his previous support base and increasingly finds himself depending on new allies. Gachagua has been a pain in Ruto’s neck, accusing the President of whatever ill he can think of. Recently, the Head of State has had to deal with Muturi, who he fired recently as Public Service Cabinet Secretary.
The two are, although currently separately, leading an assault by Mount Kenya politicians, which has invited talk that the President was losing popularity in the region. This past week, Ruto has been in Mt Kenya to appease the region’s residents.
Mt Kenya, which comprises the defunct Central Province and two counties from the former Rift Valley Province (Nakuru and Laikipia), handed Ruto 2.9 million votes in the 2022 elections.
Although he received a considerably warm welcome in the tour, there have been allegations that the government had to induce locals to attend the rallies with money. This was not the case three years ago when his rallies in the region attracted organic support.
The argument for this was that Ruto had mistreated persons from the region, sacking several from his administration. The most significant action was sanctioning last October’s impeachment of Gachagua, pushed through after Ruto’s and Raila’s handshake that handed the President the numbers to oust his former deputy. To perhaps counter these claims, Ruto paraded some of his appointees from Mt Kenya, who included Kanja, the police boss, during his tour.
Naituli argues that the Head of State should focus on his work and “stop the idea that he can buy people.”
“There is not really much he can do in the remaining time. But he can try and get some small wins. He needs to create a team, build it and release it to work without micromanaging officials,” he said.
Maanzo said Ruto should “use the goodwill afforded to him by Raila to reorganize the broken system before it runs out.”
“Kenyans have suffered a lot. They don’t have money in their pockets, and the President, who promised heavens, has delivered nothing. Instead, he is moving the government around, which is too expensive, and issuing more promises,” he stated.
