William Ruto, Kenya’s fifth president, grew up in a remote, quiet village in Kenya’s Rift Valley. It was there, watching over his family’s cows and crops, that his political ambitions began. Ruto used his humble beginnings as a chicken seller to bolster his 2022 campaign, focusing on the gaping class divide between the wealthy and low-income Kenyan communities and how his background would help change Kenya's political narrative.

Ruto took office in September 2022 after overcoming  a highly contested election, with the preliminary promise that he would make “the common person a major priority in his administration.” After a year in power, however, Ruto has failed to uphold his commitment to the working class. President Ruto’s controversial policy decisions have placed Kenyans in a state of turmoil, with significant tax hikes and increased living costs plaguing the majority of its predominantly impoverished population. Ruto’s bold campaign statements unfold as a major letdown to Kenyans, who originally saw Ruto as an equal rather than another misguided politician, as Ruto’s upbringing was so similar to their own.

Tax increases are one of the largest burdens faced by Kenya’s working class, as they disproportionately target individuals in the lower-income bracket. Further government taxation only presents an additional inequality in an already divided, low-opportunity economy. In June, Ruto signed a new parliament-approved tax package into legislation that doubles the tax on fuel to 16 percent, while also introducing a 1.5 percent housing levy on tax-payer salaries to fund his National Housing Development Fund. Though the proposed program aims to finance housing for low- and middle-income families, the immediate detrimental effects of Ruto’s tax plans will far outweigh the benefits of his grassroots ambitions.

Paired with rising living costs, the government’s tax initiatives have resulted in violent demonstrations throughout Kenya, as those who feel betrayed by Ruto’s role in the disproportionate disadvantage of the tax stand up against the new law. The growing sense of discontent amongst the Kenyan population has led many to take to the streets in the form of looting and the destruction of private and public property, causing the economy to lose over an estimated 20 million dollars a day. This monetary loss is counterproductive to Ruto’s mission to rebuild Kenya’s highly indebted economy as businesses are disrupted and police continue to retaliate with tear-gas while making hundreds of arrests. These protests began in 2022 in opposition to Ruto’s election victory, incited by opposition leader Raila Odinga’s contestion  to results, which has snowballed into mass pushback on the fuel and tax hikes. Ruto has responded to the incidents his contradictory policies have caused by telling the police to “be firm on hooligans, on criminals, [and] on people who want to destroy other people's businesses,” painting the very people he initially swore to help as violent protestors resorting to destruction. 

Ruto’s Kenya is far from the egalitarian economic state he envisioned. For a man who built his campaign on the now broken promise of a “united, inclusive society where even the ordinary, even the wheelbarrow guy, is a part of the conversation,” Ruto must do some heavy lifting if he ever wants to bridge the wealth gap at the root of Kenya’s division. If Ruto wants to repair Kenya’s indebted economy, the creation of tax policies that target those in need of the most governmental assistance is a retrogressive approach.