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The repercussions of Kenya's deadly anti government protests in June are still being felt in Nairobi.
Now.
Deputy President Brigathi Shagua is facing being removed from office after lawmakers voted to impeach him.
They are supposed to be pitched both of them, the president and the deputy president, because the voted in in the same ticket.
On this episode of the Next Africa Podcast, we'll look at what's behind the move to Auskashagua and whether Kenya is heading for even more unrest and instability.
From today one forward, we are not calum country.
I'm Jennifer Zabasaja and this is the Next Africa Podcast, bringing you one story each week from the continent, driving the future of global growth with the context only Bloomberg can provide. Joining us this week is our East Africa Bureau chief, Helen Niamburah. Helen, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and helping us make sense of this story. So we're going to get to the events in parliament shortly. But we're just a few months out from those deadly protests that we saw in Kenya over
government plans to raise more taxes. Maybe give us a timeline or TikTok of what we've seen since then and how that's led to what we're seeing now.
So we heard the protests around June and July. We swe more than sixty people killed in that in those deadly protests. Since then, we've seen President William Bruto appoint members of the opposition into his cabinet. So he picked four people from the biggest position party to join his cabinet and in high profile ministries, including the Finance ministry. He's also backed the candidature of his main rival at elections in twenty twenty two, which was Raila Dingham to
be the head of the African Union. He's been attempting to bring the opposition to his side. He also did away with the tax measures that he had planned to implement that were the trigger for those protests, and in embracing the opposition that was seen by Sam to be alienation of the deputy president. So since then we've seen a lot of the allies behind Routeau attacking the deputy President. So remarks that he's made in the past, his actions that have been made in the past were now made
into sort of a big deal. So it looked like he was being targeted. So it's been culminating throughout the two years that they have been in power, but after the protests, I think the attack on him has become bigger.
Helen, I think it's important to know.
I mean, you were saying that the president appointed several members of the opposition into the cabinet. We should also maybe discuss the president effectively let go of most of his cabinet. Can you just walk us through that, and then why then he brought in the opposition.
Yeah, so he sucked his entire cabinet. The only people who are left to were the elected leaders, which was the deputy president and I think he also left the Prime Cabinet secretary in Musalium Muldavidy. So he let go of everybody, but brought back half of his old cabinet and appointed the for from opposition and appointed a few others that were totally fresh blood. In that way, he embraced the opposition. So even in Parliament, any policies that he wants to push us through this or opposition, he
literally just obliterated the opposition in his favor. While he did this as an aftermath of the protest. The protests were not about the opposition. The protests were just young people said about what's going on in the country and had nothing to do really with party politics. He was just really strengthening his hand in Parliament and it did
nothing to appease the protesters. Even during this whole impeachment process, we've seen a lot of people asking that both of them should be impeached, not just the vice president but the president too, because they came in as a joint ticket.
So then how does this al factor into the blame game that's now going on around the protest, Helen, because you just mentioned a lot of it was gen Z and people being frustrated by policies, but now it seems like there's a bit of finger pointing going on about who was really behind it.
During the head of the protests, the President did say that the protests were infiltrated by criminal gangs. So a lot of the criminality that we saw shops being broken into, a lot of theft and so on, the president said that was they criminal gangs. And in the recent weeks we've seen some allies of the deputy President being accused of having bank crossed the criminal gangs. So if you draw a line, this just goes back to the president.
It would be interesting to see if this MPs are indicted for its allegations and if the deputy president is also drawn into this.
So that leads us to this week in parliament, Helen give us a sense of who Cachagua is and maybe dig into a little bit more why he has a target.
On his back to be impeached.
Yeah, that's interesting. So Cashagoa comes from the very populous Mount Kenya region. It's a vote reach block and once you have this block behind you, you're sort of assured of the presidency. He could argue that he added to Routor's numbers during the election. He wasn't that much known before the elections. He was a businessman. He says he was already wealthy before he came into politics and his earlier career he was like a civil servant. He worked for the government.
And what is he being accused?
So there's eleven charges in the impeachment motion. The most grave ones are about corruption. He is said to have amassed a property portfolio or about forty million dollars in the past two years that they have been in power. He says most of that he just inherited from his brother and that he's had money before this and he invested some of his money into the property. He's also accused of undermining the president, undermining national security, undermining the
cohesiveness of the nation. Kenya is divided along ethnic groups, and one of the things he spoke about elia in the presidency was about shareholding. He said, Kenya has shareholding and right now the shareholding belonged to his community and President Rutu's community. In effect, he was alienating a huge
part of the country. Kenya has more than forty ethnic groups and just saying that it's now the time for these two communities to rule, which in effect means to have access to state resources and to being a position to loot the country. That just rubbed people the wrong way and totally alienated him from a lot of Kenyans.
So a lot of Kenyans were alienated by that. But does he have support in any specific corners of the government among lawmakers.
Among lawmakers, going by the vote in the Assembly on Tuesday, does not have any support. It was two eighty one against him and forty four for him. So if we can expect the same voting pattern in Senate, then I would say that it will be the same results over there too. Among the voters, I think there's a lot of sympathy for him right now, and a lot of people are calling for both Rutal and Passia where to go.
So while lawmakers are voting along party lines, the actual voters, the people on the ground, are asking for both of them to go. So there's a lot of sympathy for him just generally because people want the entire government to leave.
Well, it's a tumultuous time for the economy. But stick with us, Allen. When we come back, we are going to dig into more about what could happen next and what this could mean more broadly for the Kenyan government's attempts to rebuild the economy and the promises that the president made. Right back, Welcome back today on the podcast, we are digging into Kenya.
Four months on from deadly protests.
The country finds itself again in political instability, with Helen Yambua, our bureau chief in Nairobi, joining us. So, Helen, what impact does this have on President Ruter's ability to govern?
What are we hearing from him?
He will be able to push any policies that he wants in Parliament. He has been able to bring a position to the fold, so in terms of legislation, it's going to be very easy for him to govern. I don't think that the removal of the Vice President portains any upheaval. It's unlikely to lead to the protest that we saw earlier in the year. He doesn't have the backing of people that would want to go to the streets to protest for him.
What about on the investment community, Helen.
We've seen the shilling being pretty stable, We've seen bond prices barely moving. I think this has been seen as just another upheaval in Kenya. Investors have become immune to the frequent up and downs in the country. So unless there's something really serious the demonstrations that we sew, the matches that we saw in June and July, I don't think that bond crisis are going to take a fitting.
So considering that, Helen, what happens next? What is the sentiment on the ground there. I mean, is there a reality that's setting in that potentially Kenya is going from crisis to crisis or is there optimism that potentially there is an opportunity to turn things around at some point.
I think keny As I just used to living crisis to crisis. Yeah, this shouldn't be seen as like a major upheaval for the country. What would be interesting to see is how Kenyans react to other things that are happening in the country. There's the introduction of a new social health program. There's been questions about how transparent that has been. There's the proposed leasing of the biggest airport in the country to a doney group that led to
protests by aviation workers. That also wasn't very transparent. There's a litany of problems, and the impeachment of the deputy president is not the biggest one, and some people would say it's to divert Kenyan's attention away to these other issues that were bubbling. So I would say Kenyans are used to scandal after scandal or upheaval, and investors are increasingly immune to them, not reading the headlines and panicking.
I think until we see what we saw in June and July, most Kenyans in the markets just continue to do things as they have done.
We'll leave it there.
Our East Africa Bureau Chief Helen Yiambura. Helen, thank you so much for your insight. We know you'll continue to be all over it. Appreciate you joining us this week.
Thank you, Jennifer, and thanks so much.
To our East Africa Bureau Chief, Helen Yamburah for joining us this week. You can read all of the coverage from our Naborbe team and our teams across the region on Bloomberg News platforms. Here's a few other stories we're watching in the region this week. Cameroony and bonds took a hit as worries mounted about the health of the
nation's president raised concerns about a potential succession battle. President Paul Bia has been absent from public views since early September, when he traveled to Europe and China, though the government says the ninety one year old leader is healthy and the Democratic Republic of Congo's top mining of Mischel tells Bloomberg the country wants to pivot away from China's dominance
of its mining industry. Congo is hoping to attract better and more diversified investors as they set their sights on playing a key role in international metals markets. Congo is the second largest producer of copper and by far the world's biggest source of cobalt. And you can follow these stories across Bloomberg, including the Next African Newsletter. We'll put a link to that in our show notes. This program
was produced by Adrian Bradley. Don't forget to follow and review the show wherever you usually get your podcasts.
I'm Jennifer's Abasaja. Thanks for listening.