When 25-year-old Kenyan teacher Stella stumbled on an X post about a new finance bill proposing taxes on basics from bread to diapers, she brushed it off as fake news. “I just dismissed it as a politician complaining about something that wasn’t true,” Stella, who did not want to give her full name, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation as she recalled the clamour on social media that began in May. But as “#RejectFinanceBill2024” flooded her feed, Stella realised this wasn’t just political noise.
It was a rallying cry from her peers: young, educated, disenfranchised Kenyans. “Some posted videos breaking down all the new taxes in the bill, others talked about how our parents were suffering with high living costs and compared it with the lavish lifestyles of our politicians. What they said struck a chord.
It angered me.” By mid-June, Stella had joined thousands of Gen Z and millennials across Kenya, taking to the streets in a wave of protests that have forced President William Ruto to make a historic U-turn and scrap his reviled law. Ruto has also sacked his cabinet for a more “broad-based government” and pledged to cut wasteful spending, dissolving state firms and reducing the number of government advisers.
Described as a “youth-quake” in the media, the protests have also forced Kenya’s police chief to resign. At least 50 people died in protests that turned violent, prompting a ban on demos in central Nairobi, a move the force said was designed to stem c.