Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: The repercussions of Kenya's deadly anti government protests in June
Speaker 2: are still being felt in Nairobi.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Deputy President Brigathi Shagua is facing being removed from office
Speaker 2: after lawmakers voted to impeach him.
Speaker 3: They are supposed to be pitched both of them, the
Speaker 3: president and the deputy president, because the voted in in
Speaker 3: the same ticket.
Speaker 2: On this episode of the Next Africa Podcast, we'll look
Speaker 2: at what's behind the move to Auskashagua and whether Kenya
Speaker 2: is heading for even more unrest and instability.
Speaker 3: From today one forward, we are not calum country.
Speaker 2: I'm Jennifer Zabasaja and this is the Next Africa Podcast,
Speaker 2: bringing you one story each week from the continent, driving
Speaker 2: the future of global growth with the context only Bloomberg
Speaker 2: can provide. Joining us this week is our East Africa
Speaker 2: Bureau chief, Helen Niamburah. Helen, thank you so much for
Speaker 2: coming on the podcast and helping us make sense of
Speaker 2: this story. So we're going to get to the events
Speaker 2: in parliament shortly. But we're just a few months out
Speaker 2: from those deadly protests that we saw in Kenya over
Speaker 2: government plans to raise more taxes. Maybe give us a
Speaker 2: timeline or TikTok of what we've seen since then and
Speaker 2: how that's led to what we're seeing now.
Speaker 3: So we heard the protests around June and July. We
Speaker 3: swe more than sixty people killed in that in those
Speaker 3: deadly protests. Since then, we've seen President William Bruto appoint
Speaker 3: members of the opposition into his cabinet. So he picked
Speaker 3: four people from the biggest position party to join his
Speaker 3: cabinet and in high profile ministries, including the Finance ministry.
Speaker 3: He's also backed the candidature of his main rival at
Speaker 3: elections in twenty twenty two, which was Raila Dingham to
Speaker 3: be the head of the African Union. He's been attempting
Speaker 3: to bring the opposition to his side. He also did
Speaker 3: away with the tax measures that he had planned to
Speaker 3: implement that were the trigger for those protests, and in
Speaker 3: embracing the opposition that was seen by Sam to be
Speaker 3: alienation of the deputy president. So since then we've seen
Speaker 3: a lot of the allies behind Routeau attacking the deputy President.
Speaker 3: So remarks that he's made in the past, his actions
Speaker 3: that have been made in the past were now made
Speaker 3: into sort of a big deal. So it looked like
Speaker 3: he was being targeted. So it's been culminating throughout the
Speaker 3: two years that they have been in power, but after
Speaker 3: the protests, I think the attack on him has become bigger.
Speaker 1: Helen, I think it's important to know.
Speaker 2: I mean, you were saying that the president appointed several
Speaker 2: members of the opposition into the cabinet. We should also
Speaker 2: maybe discuss the president effectively let go of most of
Speaker 2: his cabinet. Can you just walk us through that, and
Speaker 2: then why then he brought in the opposition.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he sucked his entire cabinet. The only people
Speaker 3: who are left to were the elected leaders, which was
Speaker 3: the deputy president and I think he also left the
Speaker 3: Prime Cabinet secretary in Musalium Muldavidy. So he let go
Speaker 3: of everybody, but brought back half of his old cabinet
Speaker 3: and appointed the for from opposition and appointed a few
Speaker 3: others that were totally fresh blood. In that way, he
Speaker 3: embraced the opposition. So even in Parliament, any policies that
Speaker 3: he wants to push us through this or opposition, he
Speaker 3: literally just obliterated the opposition in his favor. While he
Speaker 3: did this as an aftermath of the protest. The protests
Speaker 3: were not about the opposition. The protests were just young
Speaker 3: people said about what's going on in the country and
Speaker 3: had nothing to do really with party politics. He was
Speaker 3: just really strengthening his hand in Parliament and it did
Speaker 3: nothing to appease the protesters. Even during this whole impeachment process,
Speaker 3: we've seen a lot of people asking that both of
Speaker 3: them should be impeached, not just the vice president but
Speaker 3: the president too, because they came in as a joint ticket.
Speaker 2: So then how does this al factor into the blame
Speaker 2: game that's now going on around the protest, Helen, because
Speaker 2: you just mentioned a lot of it was gen Z
Speaker 2: and people being frustrated by policies, but now it seems
Speaker 2: like there's a bit of finger pointing going on about
Speaker 2: who was really behind it.
Speaker 3: During the head of the protests, the President did say
Speaker 3: that the protests were infiltrated by criminal gangs. So a
Speaker 3: lot of the criminality that we saw shops being broken into,
Speaker 3: a lot of theft and so on, the president said
Speaker 3: that was they criminal gangs. And in the recent weeks
Speaker 3: we've seen some allies of the deputy President being accused
Speaker 3: of having bank crossed the criminal gangs. So if you
Speaker 3: draw a line, this just goes back to the president.
Speaker 3: It would be interesting to see if this MPs are
Speaker 3: indicted for its allegations and if the deputy president is
Speaker 3: also drawn into this.
Speaker 2: So that leads us to this week in parliament, Helen
Speaker 2: give us a sense of who Cachagua is and maybe
Speaker 2: dig into a little bit more why he has a target.
Speaker 1: On his back to be impeached.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's interesting. So Cashagoa comes from the very populous
Speaker 3: Mount Kenya region. It's a vote reach block and once
Speaker 3: you have this block behind you, you're sort of assured
Speaker 3: of the presidency. He could argue that he added to
Speaker 3: Routor's numbers during the election. He wasn't that much known
Speaker 3: before the elections. He was a businessman. He says he
Speaker 3: was already wealthy before he came into politics and his
Speaker 3: earlier career he was like a civil servant. He worked
Speaker 3: for the government.
Speaker 1: And what is he being accused?
Speaker 3: So there's eleven charges in the impeachment motion. The most
Speaker 3: grave ones are about corruption. He is said to have
Speaker 3: amassed a property portfolio or about forty million dollars in
Speaker 3: the past two years that they have been in power.
Speaker 3: He says most of that he just inherited from his
Speaker 3: brother and that he's had money before this and he
Speaker 3: invested some of his money into the property. He's also
Speaker 3: accused of undermining the president, undermining national security, undermining the
Speaker 3: cohesiveness of the nation. Kenya is divided along ethnic groups,
Speaker 3: and one of the things he spoke about elia in
Speaker 3: the presidency was about shareholding. He said, Kenya has shareholding
Speaker 3: and right now the shareholding belonged to his community and
Speaker 3: President Rutu's community. In effect, he was alienating a huge
Speaker 3: part of the country. Kenya has more than forty ethnic
Speaker 3: groups and just saying that it's now the time for
Speaker 3: these two communities to rule, which in effect means to
Speaker 3: have access to state resources and to being a position
Speaker 3: to loot the country. That just rubbed people the wrong
Speaker 3: way and totally alienated him from a lot of Kenyans.
Speaker 2: So a lot of Kenyans were alienated by that. But
Speaker 2: does he have support in any specific corners of the
Speaker 2: government among lawmakers.
Speaker 3: Among lawmakers, going by the vote in the Assembly on Tuesday,
Speaker 3: does not have any support. It was two eighty one
Speaker 3: against him and forty four for him. So if we
Speaker 3: can expect the same voting pattern in Senate, then I
Speaker 3: would say that it will be the same results over
Speaker 3: there too. Among the voters, I think there's a lot
Speaker 3: of sympathy for him right now, and a lot of
Speaker 3: people are calling for both Rutal and Passia where to go.
Speaker 3: So while lawmakers are voting along party lines, the actual voters,
Speaker 3: the people on the ground, are asking for both of
Speaker 3: them to go. So there's a lot of sympathy for
Speaker 3: him just generally because people want the entire government to leave.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a tumultuous time for the economy. But stick
Speaker 2: with us, Allen. When we come back, we are going
Speaker 2: to dig into more about what could happen next and
Speaker 2: what this could mean more broadly for the Kenyan government's
Speaker 2: attempts to rebuild the economy and the promises that the
Speaker 2: president made. Right back, Welcome back today on the podcast,
Speaker 2: we are digging into Kenya.
Speaker 1: Four months on from deadly protests.
Speaker 2: The country finds itself again in political instability, with Helen Yambua,
Speaker 2: our bureau chief in Nairobi, joining us. So, Helen, what
Speaker 2: impact does this have on President Ruter's ability to govern?
Speaker 1: What are we hearing from him?
Speaker 3: He will be able to push any policies that he
Speaker 3: wants in Parliament. He has been able to bring a
Speaker 3: position to the fold, so in terms of legislation, it's
Speaker 3: going to be very easy for him to govern. I
Speaker 3: don't think that the removal of the Vice President portains
Speaker 3: any upheaval. It's unlikely to lead to the protest that
Speaker 3: we saw earlier in the year. He doesn't have the
Speaker 3: backing of people that would want to go to the
Speaker 3: streets to protest for him.
Speaker 1: What about on the investment community, Helen.
Speaker 3: We've seen the shilling being pretty stable, We've seen bond
Speaker 3: prices barely moving. I think this has been seen as
Speaker 3: just another upheaval in Kenya. Investors have become immune to
Speaker 3: the frequent up and downs in the country. So unless
Speaker 3: there's something really serious the demonstrations that we sew, the
Speaker 3: matches that we saw in June and July, I don't
Speaker 3: think that bond crisis are going to take a fitting.
Speaker 2: So considering that, Helen, what happens next? What is the
Speaker 2: sentiment on the ground there. I mean, is there a
Speaker 2: reality that's setting in that potentially Kenya is going from
Speaker 2: crisis to crisis or is there optimism that potentially there
Speaker 2: is an opportunity to turn things around at some point.
Speaker 3: I think keny As I just used to living crisis
Speaker 3: to crisis. Yeah, this shouldn't be seen as like a
Speaker 3: major upheaval for the country. What would be interesting to
Speaker 3: see is how Kenyans react to other things that are
Speaker 3: happening in the country. There's the introduction of a new
Speaker 3: social health program. There's been questions about how transparent that
Speaker 3: has been. There's the proposed leasing of the biggest airport
Speaker 3: in the country to a doney group that led to
Speaker 3: protests by aviation workers. That also wasn't very transparent. There's
Speaker 3: a litany of problems, and the impeachment of the deputy
Speaker 3: president is not the biggest one, and some people would
Speaker 3: say it's to divert Kenyan's attention away to these other
Speaker 3: issues that were bubbling. So I would say Kenyans are
Speaker 3: used to scandal after scandal or upheaval, and investors are
Speaker 3: increasingly immune to them, not reading the headlines and panicking.
Speaker 3: I think until we see what we saw in June
Speaker 3: and July, most Kenyans in the markets just continue to
Speaker 3: do things as they have done.
Speaker 1: We'll leave it there.
Speaker 2: Our East Africa Bureau Chief Helen Yiambura. Helen, thank you
Speaker 2: so much for your insight. We know you'll continue to
Speaker 2: be all over it. Appreciate you joining us this week.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Jennifer, and thanks so much.
Speaker 2: To our East Africa Bureau Chief, Helen Yamburah for joining
Speaker 2: us this week. You can read all of the coverage
Speaker 2: from our Naborbe team and our teams across the region
Speaker 2: on Bloomberg News platforms. Here's a few other stories we're
Speaker 2: watching in the region this week. Cameroony and bonds took
Speaker 2: a hit as worries mounted about the health of the
Speaker 2: nation's president raised concerns about a potential succession battle. President
Speaker 2: Paul Bia has been absent from public views since early September,
Speaker 2: when he traveled to Europe and China, though the government
Speaker 2: says the ninety one year old leader is healthy and
Speaker 2: the Democratic Republic of Congo's top mining of Mischel tells
Speaker 2: Bloomberg the country wants to pivot away from China's dominance
Speaker 2: of its mining industry. Congo is hoping to attract better
Speaker 2: and more diversified investors as they set their sights on
Speaker 2: playing a key role in international metals markets. Congo is
Speaker 2: the second largest producer of copper and by far the
Speaker 2: world's biggest source of cobalt. And you can follow these
Speaker 2: stories across Bloomberg, including the Next African Newsletter. We'll put
Speaker 2: a link to that in our show notes. This program
Speaker 2: was produced by Adrian Bradley. Don't forget to follow and
Speaker 2: review the show wherever you usually get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: I'm Jennifer's Abasaja. Thanks for listening.