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Riot police disperse supporters of Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga in Nairobi.
As Kenyans protest, their politicians play chicken
For two weeks, Kenya's major cities have been hit by anti-government protests that have since turned violent. Security forces have tear-gassed demonstrators in the capital, Nairobi, while pro-government mobs ransacked former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s farm and businesses shut their doors for fear of looting.
With no end in sight, the next round of rallies is scheduled for Thursday.
Despite the institutional gains made over the last decade, the specter of previous episodes of political violence hangs heavy in Kenya. So, what’s going on?
The flames of unrest are being stoked by two bitter political rivals, opposition leader Raila Odinga and President William Ruto, who squared off in a tight presidential election in 2022. Odinga is contesting his narrow loss to Ruto, the ex-VP of Kenyatta (who endorsed Odinga in the race).
These three political heavyweights have a long history of working together in Kenya, where the separation between elite business and politics is slim to none.
Who’s who:
- Odinga hails from a political dynasty in Kenya. Despite losing the presidency five times, his political power stems from his ability to mobilize his passionate supporters — who have granted him nicknames like “Father,” “Act of God,” and most endearingly: “Tractor” — to stir up trouble on the streets.
- Ruto claims to be the first president not to come from a political family. He won in 2022 as a champion of the poor, pushing his rags-to-riches story and hustler image.
- Kenyatta ruled the country from 2013 to 2022. He’s left behind a mixed legacy of massive infrastructure development but also debt and corruption.
The relationship between the three is, to put it mildly, awkward. Ruto wants to take credit for what went right under Kenyatta and distance himself from the pitfalls. Similarly, Kenyatta and Odinga are old political rivals who buried the hatchet in 2018 with a joint statement declaring each other as “brothers.”
Officially, the protests are over inflation, which Odinga blames on Ruto and Ruto blames on Kenyatta. But Odinga also wants the president to step down because he claims — without evidence and despite the Supreme Court ruling otherwise — that he was cheated in 2022.
The problem is that Odinga was so sure he'd win that his coalition has struggled to regroup as the opposition, says Eurasia Group analyst Connor Vasey. Meanwhile, Ruto has co-opted many Odinga allies, hampering the ability of his rival to challenge him in parliament.
Odinga is using the cost-of-living narrative as a "lightning rod to ensure turnout" at his protests, Vasey adds. This is dangerous, he explains, because the opposition leader is a master at rallying his supporters to reach his political ends, no matter the risk of instability. (After he lost to Kenyatta in 2017, Odinga spurred violent political protests until he received public recognition of his power – in the form of a firm handshake – from the president.)
So while Odinga is officially trying to overturn Ruto's victory, Vasey believes that what he really wants is a "Handshake 2.0" or public recognition of his political power and influence.
Kenya is thus stuck in a political game of chicken in which Ruto, as president, has the upper hand (and not just because he was once a chicken vendor).
Odinga might be a political force on the streets, but Ruto is consolidating power in parliament and using the security forces to stop the protests from spreading beyond Nairobi and other major cities. The president believes he can wait Odinga out, gambling that if he doesn’t get what he wants soon, he’ll lose the political momentum.
Meanwhile, Vasey adds, Odinga has no choice but to “escalate in the hope [that] Ruto bites.”
Kenya’s presidential “choice” is 2 flavors of continuity
Kenyans go to the polls Tuesday to elect a successor to term-limited President Uhuru Kenyatta, who’s stepping down after 10 years in East Africa’s economic hub. But their choice is limited to one between Kenyatta’s longtime enemy-turned-ally, or the president’s own VP, who’s running against Kenyatta’s record (and therefore his own).
Huh? Please explain. The pro-administration candidate is opposition leader Raila Odinga, who's running for president for the fifth time. He lost the last two elections to Kenyatta. But in 2018, the two patched things up with a very public handshake, leaving Deputy President William Ruto as the odd man out.
Dynasty vs. “hustler.”Odinga, the scion of a famous political dynasty, is pitching himself as "Baba" (father) of the nation. He vows to give affordable healthcare to all Kenyans and a $50 monthly stipend to poor people.
For his part, Ruto — a former chicken vendor who claims he didn't own a pair of shoes until he was 15 — says he'll be the champion of the poor (although now he’s a wealthy landowner). Still, the 55-year-old promises to support young Kenyan “hustlers,” and being the first candidate not from a political family with a shot at winning the top job is nothing to sneeze at.
The two, however, have serious Kenyatta baggage. "Both men are struggling to disassociate themselves from the current administration," says Eurasia Group analyst Connor Vasey.
Indeed, the outgoing president has a mixed record: infrastructure development boomed on his watch, but so did graft and debt. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court nixed his plan to reform the constitution and appoint himself PM.
Ruto, Vasey explains, is trying to take credit for Kenyatta's achievements "while also explaining why he is not responsible for its failings, and [...] why he would do better this time." Meanwhile, Odinga can hardly claim to be the progressive alternative "while also leveraging his relationship with [a] conservative president whose track record he has long criticized."
What most Kenyan voters want is a leader who’ll do something different to fix tangible problems like rising food and fuel prices or youth unemployment. But they won't get much change from Odinga or Ruto, who are "basically just two versions of continuity," says political commentator and cartoonist Patrick Gathara.
"They are not new entities. And I don't think there's an expectation that what they are saying or what they are promising would be anything revolutionary," Gathara adds. "Kenyans [...] don't expect that if one takes power at the expense of the other, that would make a huge difference in how the country is run."
Why should people vote at all then? Kenya has by far the most competitive democracy in East Africa, where strongmen have carried the day more often than not. And while previous elections have been marred by violence, few are expecting widespread unrest this time around.
Still, Gathara believes that voting alone is not enough.
"There has been a huge emphasis on elections and on especially switching the people running the country — as if that would itself lead to a more serious attempt to actually fix [Kenya's] problems," he says. "But we've been on this merry-go-round since the 1950s and seen that it's really not about who's in power, but [rather] the system that they run. And this is a system that, in essence, is inherited from colonialism and never changed."
Until all Kenyans push to reform how politics work from the grassroots, Gathara laments, "voting can only take us so far."
Meanwhile, Odinga and Ruto are so tight in the surveys that the election could go to a runoff for the first time if neither gets 50% of the vote. In that case, the surprise kingmaker might be longshot presidential hopeful George Wajackoya, now polling a distant third at around 3% and with a few interesting ideas on how to make Kenya great.
If he were president, Wajackoya would legalize cannabis and boost trade with Asia by selling erectile dysfunction “medicine” made with … hyena testicles. No wonder he's the only "change" candidate.
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Election banners of Kenya's presidential hopefuls.
Kenya’s two-and-a-half presidential horse race
On Aug. 9, Kenya’s 22 million registered voters will go the polls to pick a successor to the outgoing President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is barred from reelection by term limits. They will also select new national- and county-level lawmakers and county governors. For the presidential contest, Kenyans are presented with a batch of familiar faces to choose from. Yet even by the standards of the country’s ultra-transactional, unpredictable politics, this year’s electoral playing field is an unusual one. We spoke with Eurasia Group analyst Connor Vasey to learn more.
Who are the candidates?
It is a very narrow race this year with only four presidential candidates cleared to participate. In practice it is even tighter than that — what you might call a “two-and-a-half horse race.” On the one side is Deputy President William Ruto, whose gradual alienation from Kenyatta makes him both an incumbent and opposition figure. He heads both his party the United Democratic Alliance and the coalition Kenya Kwanza.
On the other side is the long-time opposition leader Raila Odinga (Orange Democratic Movement), who is taking his fifth and likely final stab at the presidency. But courtesy of a 2018 mending of fences Odinga has the backing of erstwhile rival Kenyatta, the “half horse” supporting Odinga’s campaign. The two have cobbled together the 26-member Azimio La Umoja (Declaration of Unity) coalition, which Kenyatta heads.
What are their platforms?
Beyond the branding and personalities, the platforms of the two leading candidates are essentially the same. Both are promising economic “rejuvenation” or “liberation” (depending on who you ask) for the bottom of the population pyramid. Both are talking big on support for farmers, small enterprises, youth entrepreneurs, and the informal sector.
Ruto clothes this in his “hustler versus dynasty” narrative, which frames his campaign as an effort to take on the established political families that have called the shots in Kenya since independence. Odinga, meanwhile, leans heavily on his contribution to bringing multiparty democracy to Kenya and his time in the opposition to portray himself as the more credible, elder statesman. He has chosen the respected anticorruption campaigner and constitutionalist Martha Karua as his running mate.
What are the main issues?
The state of the economy – specifically job creation and the cost of living – is by far the biggest. Though long a concern for most Kenyans, it has taken on more urgency in recent years. The pandemic and spike in commodity prices have increased economic hardship and exposed very ugly inequality. Until recently, Ruto’s campaign focused almost exclusively on the economy, and Odinga has made serious efforts to catch-up on that front.
In addition, corruption and healthcare are two other broad national concerns, while more local issues such as access to water and power may also sway some voters.
Why is Kenyatta backing Odinga and not Ruto?
It is important to note first of all that the Kenyatta-Ruto relationship was always a marriage of convenience and was never underpinned by deeper, interpersonal alignment. Once their collaboration was no longer politically expedient, its days were numbered. When Kenyatta and Odinga agreed in early 2018 to put an end to their bitter dispute of the 2017 election result –an act of reconciliation known locally as “The Handshake” – that signaled the political landscape was about to start shifting.
As to why Kenyatta decided his alliance with Ruto had outlived its usefulness, he appears to have come to the conclusion that Ruto was not the best person to preserve his presidential legacy and his family’s extensive economic interests. People close to the president say it had become apparent that Ruto was both uncomfortably independent – for example, he had developed a following in Kenyatta’s own stronghold – and an unreliable “business partner.” The increasing prominence of Odinga, who himself harbors grievances against Ruto, further soured Kenyatta on his deputy.
Will there be 2017-level violence?
The instability we saw in 2017 was mostly the product of the interaction of violent protests with an even more violent police response. Something similar, albeit on a smaller scale, is a risk. Actions by electoral officials that can inflame tensions will be an important watchpoint – unfortunately, they are perceived as partisan supporters of one candidate or the other.
That said, there are reasons for cautious optimism. First, despite some isolated incidents, the pre-election period has been quiet in comparison with previous cycles. Second, there have been important changes to the 2010 constitution that are increasingly institutionalized: the decentralization of power to counties (reducing the stakes of elections) and stronger judicial independence (which gives candidates a credible route to challenge a loss). Third, and perhaps most importantly, is the apathy many Kenyans feel toward an election lacking in fresh faces.
What are the main challenges waiting for the next president?
In the early days, both candidates will struggle to accommodate members of their large alliances in government positions and to restore sufficient political calm to devise a solution to the cost-of-living crisis. Longer term, walking the tightrope between stimulating growth and preserving Kenya’s fragile finances will be the biggest challenge for the new president. The voices of a young population demanding more jobs and improvements in standards of living will only grow louder.