Protests in Kenya - Who is to Blame?
By Max Lawson
Kenya is on fire. Many thousands of Kenyans, led by young people but from all ages and walks of life, have been protesting in Nairobi and across the country. The scale of the protests was not something Kenya has seen for decades. For many, including many friends and colleagues, this was their first-ever demonstration. Kenya, like most of Africa, has a very young population; the average age is 19. The police have responded with brutality and bullets; many have died or been injured or have been abducted by security forces.
The focus of the fury was a rushed-through finance bill laying out the government’s fiscal strategy that this year included a series of proposals to tax everyday goods, including bread, cooking oil, sanitary towels and more. This was the last straw for a population already facing impossible price rises.
Is the IMF to blame?
In the face of the protests, there were many people inside and outside Kenya who were quick to point the finger at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the debt crisis. The IMF is requiring the Kenyan Government to implement spending cuts and tax rises to balance its books and be able to repay its foreign debts.
At the same time, protesters in Kenya are very much aiming their anger and blame at President Ruto, and calling for him to step down.
So who is to blame? Is it President Ruto, or is it the IMF?
I think the case for the IMF being a significant cause is strong.
The fact that so many countries in the Global South are suddenly and simultaneously struggling with unpayable debts, and all having to go to the IMF and be subjected to such forced and unpopular austerity measures at the same time, is a strong argument in favour of a more global, systemic cause.
Although I think blaming just the IMF is a bit like blaming just the police for crackdowns and demanding certain actions. The IMF, just like the police, have a lot to answer for ―that much is definitely true. But ultimately, they are just the front door to a much bigger house. The police are the agents of the state, and the IMF are the agents of the global economic system. As a creditor, they need to ensure that they are paid, and that other creditors, like the bondholders in Britain and New York are paid, too.
An unlikely hero
Ruto himself has spoken out about the global financial system, calling it “unfair and punitive” and calling for debt relief. He has rightly pointed out that borrowing costs for Africa are far higher than the rest of the world. Ruto is chairing, with France, a taskforce to look at how rich countries can do more to fund the fight against climate change. In some quarters, he has become a bit of a poster child for a new, resurgent and assertive Global South, telling King Charles that colonial rule was ‘brutal and atrocious to African people’ and that ‘much remains to be done to achieve full reparations.’
Yet anyone who knows about Ruto and his government, and indeed previous Kenyan governments of which he was a part, would struggle to see him as a progressive decolonial hero in any way at all.
As Deputy President in the former government, Ruto was part of an administration that took on, enthusiastically, huge amounts of new debt. During his first year in office as President, debt rose to record levels. These high debt levels have been linked in investigations by Africa Uncensored to high levels of corruption.
The International Criminal Court also charged Ruto with crimes against humanity for his part in post-electoral violence in 2007, which left 1,200 people dead. A similar case was also made against the previous president, Uhuru Kenyatta. The cases were only dropped when key witnesses in the case changed their statements, which prosecutors said was due to intimidation and bribery.
Ruto’s administration has also been mired in a series of different corruption scandals worth many millions of dollars.
So who is to blame?
Given all this, to blame what is happening in Kenya entirely on the IMF and the unfair global economic system seems inaccurate. In writing this, I surveyed a number of different friends and comrades in Kenya, asking them to give a percentage breakdown. There was really dramatic variation, but the majority felt that Ruto was around 70% to blame, with around 30% for the IMF. I would probably be more 50-50 myself. Either way, what was really striking was how everyone could see it was definitely both, and the awareness of the IMF and its role, at all levels of Kenyan society, is considerable.
There is also a huge resurgence in interest in the inequality between the Global North and the Global South. Interest and understanding of colonialism, both historically, and the way that the modern economic system continues to favour the Global North in a recognisably colonial way. There is also a related new enthusiasm for national governments in the Global South developing their own independent paths and being able to control their own destiny. I think this is hugely exciting. In Kenya, the colonial actions of the UK government were absolutely appalling.
But I think we need to be careful of slipping into simplistic binaries too; and understand, like the protesters clearly do in Kenya, that the causes of poverty and inequality in the Global South are both national and international.
Elites north and south always seem to come out on top
I would also go further and say that, in fact, there is a link between the two. Elites in the Global South and in the Global North are arguably the main beneficiaries of this unequal global system.
To give one example, earlier this year, Kenya had to find $1.44 billion to repay its Eurobond. We know from our analysis that on average 43% of financial assets are owned by the top 1%. It is not implausible then to say that almost half of the repayment went directly to the richest people in the world.
It is not the case is that everyone in the Global South is equally impacted by our unequal global system. Instead, a small minority do very well out of it, just as they did in colonial times. The richest Kenyans live the lives of the global 1%. Equally in the Global North, the 3 million people in the UK going hungry are not the ones benefiting from lending money to Kenya.
The exact apportionment of blame is mixed, complicated, and connected ―both national and international; but a common theme I think is that a small elite minority benefits one way or another.
Whatever the mix of cause and blame though, what is indisputable is that those brave protesters, dodging tear gas and bullets, risking life and limb to demand a fairer Kenya and a fairer world, are entirely blameless. They are the heroes of this story. All power to them.
END.
Author: Max Lawson, Head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam International and EQUALS podcast co-host. He is also the co-chair of the Global People’s Medicines Alliance.
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