Kenyan demonstrators are preparing to resume protests Thursday, following President William Ruto’s unexpected decision to withdraw contentious tax hikes after deadly rallies earlier this week.
Despite Ruto’s reversal, some protesters remain resolute, insisting that only his resignation will suffice.
“As political activists, we have to make sure that Ruto and his MPs have resigned and fresh elections are held,” Davis Tafari told Reuters.
The demonstrations began last week in response to the 2024 finance bill and caught Ruto’s government off guard as initially peaceful rallies gained momentum nationwide.
However, on Tuesday, chaos erupted outside parliament, resulting in a partially ablazed complex being breached and ransacked.
The aftermath left the nation stunned, with a state-backed rights group reporting 22 deaths across the country.
Addressing the nation on Wednesday afternoon, Ruto announced he would not sign the bill and that it “shall subsequently be withdrawn.”
He acknowledged, “The people have spoken”, and expressed his intention to seek “engagement with the young people of our nation”.
This was a shift from his harsh late-night address on Tuesday, where he likened some of the demonstrators to “criminals”.
Despite Ruto’s comments, protesters dismissed his stance, particularly after the violence that marred earlier rallies.
The death toll stood at 22 on Wednesday, with 19 fatalities in the capital alone, according to Roseline Odede, chairwoman of the state-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights.
“This is the largest number of deaths (in) a single day protest,” Odede said, adding that 300 people were injured across the country.
Simon Kigondu, president of the Kenya Medical Association, stated that he had never witnessed “such a level of violence against unarmed people.”
An official at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi reported that medics were treating “160 people… some of them with bullet wounds.”
An AFP journalist observed dried blood on pavements and lingering tear gas smells outside parliament on Wednesday morning, where the protesters had converged.
Rights watchdogs have also accused authorities of abducting protesters, though the police have not responded to AFP requests for comment.
Ruto had previously rolled back some tax measures last week, leading the Treasury to warn of a budget shortfall of 200 billion shillings ($1.6 billion).
On Wednesday, Ruto stated that withdrawing the bill would create a funding gap for development programmes aimed at assisting farmers and schoolteachers.
The financially strained government had previously argued that the tax increases were necessary to manage Kenya’s massive debt of approximately 10 trillion shillings ($78 billion), equivalent to roughly 70 percent of GDP.
