Kenya election: What William Ruto's manifesto means for development

On Monday, Aug. 15, William Ruto was announced as the president-elect of Kenya following a hotly contested election. His presidency is still not assured: Four of the seven electoral commissioners rejected the outcome of the election, describing the tallying process as “opaque.” Ruto’s main challenger, Raila Odinga, has filed a petition in the Supreme Court seeking to overturn it, with the court set to rule imminently. Even as the petition is underway, the president-elect has been busy consolidating his supremacy in parliament and the senate with post-election coalitions that would grant him a majority in both houses. If the Supreme Court does not nullify his win, Ruto will be sworn in as the fifth president of Kenya. He will be assuming office at a time when the cost of living and unemployment are high, both of which he promised to address. In his campaigns, he said he would defend the constitution to improve accountability in governance, end the personalization of political power, and create jobs. As of 2021, unemployment in Kenya was at 5.7%. But that figure is more than twice as high among young people aged between 15 and 24, according to an International Labour Organization estimate, while a 2020 report from Kenya’s Institute of Economic Affairs suggested it was higher still. With 800,000 people joining Kenya’s workforce every year, according to the IEA report, the creation of jobs for young people is a key priority. Ruto’s campaign centered around this, as he sought to present himself as a defender of the nation’s “hustlers” — ambitious, hardworking young people who are being held back by an economy that isn’t working for them. Launching his manifesto in July in front of a packed audience, and millions following live, Ruto acknowledged the problem. “There are not enough white-collar managerial jobs in the public service or the small corporate economy to absorb the hundreds of thousands of young educated Kenyans with middle-class aspirations,” he said. His plan is to invest the limited capital available in areas where the most employment can be created, especially for disadvantaged groups who have limited access to formal employment despite having the education — prioritizing the sectors of agriculture, medium and small enterprises, housing and settlement, manufacturing, the digital superhighway and creative economy, the service economy, environment, and climate change. His party’s manifesto speaks of launching a “bottom-up 3P solution,” which refers to people, planet, and profit. As part of this, the party will prioritize agroforestry, biomass energy, and waste management, and promises to support clean cooking tools such as briquette making. Ruto also embraces the informal sector, describing “a commitment to end exclusion and criminalization of livelihoods, and level [the] playing field for all investors big and small.” His manifesto speaks of providing capital to the unemployed to start businesses and commits 500 billion Kenyan shillings ($4.2 billion) over the course of five years to fund smallholder agriculture and the informal sector. For Juma Nyangi, a researcher at the Institute of Public Finance in Kenya, Ruto’s pledge to focus on job creation can only be sustainable if the government also creates an enabling environment for the private sector to grow and provide jobs. Rather than offering its limited capital directly to business owners — which means the government “will have to spend a lot to create jobs” — he would rather see it investing in security, education, electricity, and training to allow the private sector to flourish organically. Nyangi also highlighted the importance of NGOs in “build[ing] the capacity of small businesses to engage with [the] government.” Ruto has also pledged to tackle the country’s spiraling public debt, which is becoming “a source of concern to our development partners,” he says. With Kenya’s debt currently standing at 8.2 trillion Kenyan shillings, he says his government will reduce borrowing, put an end to unbudgeted projects — those that sit outside of the national budget — and raise revenues, in part through more effective tax collection mechanisms to close loopholes. But some things are unlikely to change, experts say. One major issue that Ruto has pledged to address is government accountability and adherence to the constitution. During his campaign, Ruto claimed that his former ally Uhuru Kenyatta and rival Odinga were pushing for constitutional reforms for self-interested reasons. The pair had backed an initiative — called the Building Bridges Initiative — that would have made changes to the constitution. The initiative was ostensibly aimed at addressing ethnic antagonism and divisive politics, but critics said the intention was to cement their power and it was quashed by the Supreme Court. If confirmed as the winner of the presidential election, Ruto will be tasked with demonstrating that the constitution is being upheld and ensuring that the accountability commissions and other independent bodies are free from state influence. “It is my firm conviction that our 2010 Consti­tution is serving us well, and the challenges that remain are largely where we have resist­ed implementation,” he said during his manifesto launch. But Otsieno Namwaya, the East Africa director for Human Rights Watch, isn’t expecting to see changes, noting that Ruto served as deputy president alongside Kenyatta, “which is the same period [during which] the authorities clawed back on the constitution or failed to implement it,” he said. Based on previous election campaigns, “both Ruto and Uhuru are not known to bother about honoring what they promised,” he added. Similarly, corruption is a major challenge for the incoming government, according to Collins Odote, associate professor in the law faculty at the University of Nairobi. Ruto has pledged to stamp it out, although he himself has been surrounded by corruption allegations, which he denies. “There is a very likely possibility that having been a deputy president for the last 10 years, that he might depart from [his pledge],” Odote said. “Thankfully, we have strong institutions. We have a judiciary that is independent, we have a free media, so it is incumbent for the different institutions to hold him accountable because if we don’t, there is a very likely possibility … that the fight against corruption might suffer.” For Karuti Kanyinga, research professor at the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Nairobi, this is one of the key issues that will determine the country’s future relationship with its development partners. “I think the international community will be concerned … about reversals in terms of democratic governance, the rule of law, and corruption more than anything else because these are the badges of honor,” he said.