Protesters attacked the headquarters of the Kenyan Parliament in Nairobi on Tuesday and set fire to part of the building, where this morning a bill endorsed by the Government was being debated that contemplates raising taxes and creating others and that has generated a wave of protests driven by young people in the whole country.
The protesters are opposing tax increases in a country that already has a high cost of living and inflation, while many of them are also calling for President William Ruto to resign.
The protests began a week ago and have been largely fueled by youth-led digital activism using platforms like X and TikTok to oppose the bill, crowdfund, organize and mobilize protests against it. Last Thursday, one person was killed and at least 200 injured in demonstrations across the country.
This Tuesday, while the law was being debated in Congress, protesters managed to access the Parliament grounds, in the center of the Kenyan capital. The Police unleashed a brutal repression and opened fire on the crowd, killing protesters to prevent more people from approaching the building. The exact number of dead and injured is not known so far although a paramedic said at least 10 people had died and a Reuters journalist outside parliament counted the bodies of at least five protesters.
Chanting “Ruto must go, Ruto must go!”, referring to the Kenyan president, protesters managed to enter Parliament through the Senate (Upper House), in an unprecedented protest in recent Kenyan history.
What began as a protest by thousands of young people against tax increases in the Kenyan capital and other cities in at least 29 of the country’s 47 districts led to a pitched battle between repressive forces and protesters.
The protests spread beyond Parliament and targeted official buildings in the vicinity, such as the Office of Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja, also set on fire by protesters.
While occupying Parliament, protesters accused politicians of being “traitors” after 195 deputies preliminarily voted in favor of the 2024 Finance Bill, compared to 106 votes against (the final vote is still missing). The Project proposed by the Government proposes new taxes, such as the 16% VAT on bread or the 2.5% VAT on motor vehicles, in addition to the increase in some of the existing ones, such as the money transfer service.
With this tax increase, the Government seeks to respond to the IMF’s demands to raise 2.7 billion dollars and reduce the budget deficit and obtain income to continue paying the external debt whose interest already consumes 37% of the country’s annual income.
The protesters denounce that these measures by the Government and the IMF push the population into poverty, and for the first time in history the youth took the lead in a protest of these characteristics that included questioning Parliament and calling for the fall of the Government.
