Kenyan police face demonstrators chanting “Ruto must go.”
Tear gas was used by Kenyan police to scatter hundreds of protestors in an effort to maintain pressure on President William Ruto following his concessions to demonstrators.
Protesters who began weeks of demonstrations against proposed tax increases demanded on Tuesday a “total shutdown” of the nation.
Even when the president retracted $2.7 billion in tax increases and fired almost his whole cabinet, the protests have produced the most crisis of Ruto’s two years in office.
Demanding that Ruto resign, many protestors hold him accountable for misgovernance, corruption, and the deaths of scores of demonstrators at previous antigovernment demonstrations.
In Kitengela, a community on the fringes of Nairobi’s south, where roughly 200 protestors were burning tires and shouting, “Ruto must go!” and “Stop killing us,” police opened fire on the demonstrators on Tuesday.
As a few dozen protestors in Nairobi’s city center screamed on Ruto to resign, riot police also used tear gas. Kenyan TV showed demonstrators marching through the seaside city of Mombasa while brandishing palm branches.
“Multisectoral” negotiations to resolve the demonstrators’ issues were scheduled for this week, according to Ruto’s office, but there was no indication that they had started.
The majority of the prominent demonstrators have turned down the offer and instead demanded that urgent action be taken against problems like corruption.
Ruto finds himself sandwiched between lenders’ demands to reduce deficits and a beleaguered populace struggling to keep up with the soaring cost of living.
Kenya’s government spends more than thirty percent of its earnings merely on interest on its debt.
Last month, the protests started out calmly but gradually descended into violence. On June 25, a few protestors briefly broke into parliament, and the police opened fire.
According to rights groups, more than 40 people have died during the protests.
Without offering any proof, Ruto charged on Monday that the American charitable organization Ford Foundation was funding individuals who were responsible for “violence and mayhem” in Kenya.
