‘Ruto must go!’: Kenyan police confront antigovernment protesters

Activists behind weeks of protests that were initially sparked by proposed tax hikes called for a “total shutdown” of the country on Tuesday.

The protests have created the biggest crisis of Ruto’s two years in power and have continued even after the president withdrew $2.7bn in tax hikes and fired nearly his entire cabinet.

Many demonstrators are demanding that Ruto step down, blaming him for misgovernance, corruption, and the deaths of dozens of protesters during earlier antigovernment rallies.

On Tuesday, police fired tear gas in Kitengela, a town on the southern outskirts of the capital, Nairobi, where about 200 protesters burned tyres and chanted, “Ruto must go!” and “Stop killing us.”

Riot police in Nairobi’s city centre also fired tear gas as a few dozen protesters chanted for Ruto to step down. Demonstrators in the coastal city of Mombasa marched while waving palm fronds, footage from Kenyan media showed.

Ruto’s office had announced “multisectoral” talks for this week to address grievances raised by the protesters, but there was no sign they had begun. Most of the leading activists behind the protests have rejected the invitation, instead calling for immediate action on issues like corruption.

With Kenya’s government spending more than 30 percent of its revenue just paying the interest on its debt, Ruto has been caught between the demands of lenders to cut deficits and a hard-pressed population reeling from the rising cost of living.

The protests began peacefully last month but later turned violent. Some demonstrators briefly stormed parliament on June 25, and the police opened fire. More than 40 people have been killed in the protests, rights groups said.

Ruto on Monday accused the Ford Foundation, an American philanthropic organisation, of sponsoring those who caused “violence and mayhem” in Kenya, without providing evidence.

The Ford Foundation rejected the allegation, saying it did not fund or sponsor the protests and has a strictly nonpartisan policy for awarding its grants.