Associated PressNAIROBI, Kenya — Kenya's president said on Wednesday he won't sign into law a finance bill proposing new taxes that prompted thousands of protesters to storm the parliament the previous day, leaving several people killed as police opened fire. It was the biggest assault on Kenya’s government in decades.
"It is necessary for us to have a conversation as a nation on how ... do we manage the affairs of the country together,” he said. Kenya has seen protests in the past, but activists and others warned the stakes were now more dangerous — Ruto on Tuesday vowed to quash unrest “at whatever cost," even as more protests were called at the State House on Thursday.
There were no reports of violence Wednesday, but there was fear. Civil society groups have reported abductions of people involved in recent protests and expect more to come. Kenya's High Court ordered police to release all those arrested in the protests. Ruto said those allegedly abducted had been released or processed in court.
“How did we get here?” Kenya’s vice president, Rigathi Gachagua, asked Wednesday in nationally broadcast comments after the president’s turnabout, openly wondering how the government had become so unpopular in just two years. “We were the darling of the Kenyan people.”