Since June 18th, protests began in Kenya against the new taxes in the Financial Bill 2024. Demonstrators swept across the capital of Kenya, causing severe global humanitarian concern about the democratic system of Kenya. The protest was originally peaceful until June 25th. The parliament ignored the ongoing dissatisfaction among its people and remained determined to pass the financial bill on June 25th. This enraged the demonstrators and eventually led them to breach the police barricade and storm the parliament. In response to the violence, the Kenyan Police force reacted with tear gas, stones, and flames. By July 1st, it is estimated that 39 people had died and 361 had been injured in the protests. Although Kenyan President William Ruto agreed to shelve the tax bill on June 26th, the demonstrations continued, calling for further reforms, with some even calling for Ruto’s immediate resignation.
The main cause of this concerning protest among Kenyan citizens is the severe national debt crisis of the Kenyan Bank. For various reasons, the Kenyan government has accumulated debt as high as 70% of its national GDP (about 122 billion US dollars) by the year 2023. One reason for the debt crisis was Kenya’s borrowing from China for the Belt and Road Initiative. With this initiative, Kenya built the first segment of the Standard Gauge Railroad (SGR) in 2017, connecting Kenyan cities Mombasa and Nairobi. However, the railroad’s revenue failed to meet the expectations. In 2021, the railroad lost 200 million US dollars, far from the original vision of earning the debt back. This devastating investment is only one of the misfortunes that Kenya has experienced in the past decades. Along with other incidents such as COVID-19, the Kenyan national debt has reached a point of no return. Therefore, President Ruto made the extremely unpopular decision to raise taxes in 2024 amidst the already boiling national unrest.
However, the economic crisis alone is incapable of igniting such pervasive and devastating political unrest. Another significant problem in Kenya is its vulnerable democratic structure. Since Kenya’s independence in 1963, the Kenyan African National Union (KANU) has dominated Kenyan politics. Although the one-party system was prohibited in 1990, KANU implicitly still largely controls Kenyan politics. In the 2022 Kenyan Election, both candidates William Ruto and Raila Odinga were political figures in KANU. Therefore, doubts remain that the one-party system still pervades the political atmosphere in Kenya, and elections do not bring much change. Thus, people in Kenya often blame ill political decisions on the one-party dominance of KANU and see a lack of genuine democracy in the nation. This is the fundamental reason why many seek total political reform in Kenya even after President Ruto’s actions toward the demonstration on June 26th.
Social Justice Watcher observes that under the complicated socio-political background in Kenya, any form of police violence is intolerable. Through a series of political reforms, Kenya should make its elections more convincing and reliable to the public, eliminating the mistrust between the government and its citizens. To bring social justice, the government should act as the embodiment of its people, instead of ruling its people with an iron fist. Taxes are only one manifestation of social mistrust; without fundamental reform in the interaction between the government and its people, future protests and violence will be unavoidable, and further humanitarian violations will occur.
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