Images of Kenyan President William Ruto and his entourage alighting from a Kenya Airways plane upon their arrival in China on Monday stirred up social media among the country’s famed digital activists.
The reactions were mostly laudatory, with some commentators praising the President for promoting the national carrier’s brand while in Beijing to attend the 9th Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (Focac) Summit.
“Arrived in Beijing for the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit. The meeting presents an opportunity for Africa to renew and strengthen its partnership with China. Over the years, China has proven to be a true development partner, significantly revamping our infrastructure. We look forward to leveraging these ties to accelerate our transformation,” Dr Ruto tweeted.
But State House’s decision to play up the President’s travel plans for high-profile events abroad, underscores deep concerns about his image in the wake of a groundswell of discontent over wasteful government spending and public display of opulence by senior administration figures, which culminated into the youth-led uprising against him in June and July.
The youth-led or Gen Z protests were triggered by the punitive taxes introduced through the Finance Bill 2024 in June.
But there were already signs of danger for the President in May, when he was heavily criticised on social media for using a private jet for his three-day State visit to the US.
Although State House issued a statement that the private jet had been hired with donations from the United Arab Emirates, people close to Dr Ruto remained dismissive about the threats of digital activism and didn’t see the protests coming.
Only four days to the outbreak of the protests in Nairobi on June 18, the President’s chief economic adviser, David Ndii, put out a post on X (formerly Twitter) mocking the government critics on social media, most of them youth in their 20s and 30s, as harmless and clueless.
“Politics is a contact sport. Digital activism is just wa**ng. Any jackass can kick down a barn but it takes a good carpenter to build one,” he said in a post on June 14 in response to complaints about the Finance Bill.
But in the wake of a wave of street protests mobilised mostly on digital platforms, which saw Parliament overrun on June 25 and forced Dr Ruto to dismiss his Cabinet, a major rebranding of the president and his administration appears to be under way.
The possibility of the Gen Z movement disrupting the traditional voting patterns in Kenya’s next elections in 2027 is also believed to be weighing on the minds of the president’s political strategists.
In the past two weeks alone, he has spoken at two town hall meetings in Nairobi and Kisumu, seeking to explain his administration’s achievements and policies to the majority youthful audiences.
The Nairobi town meeting on August 25, was specifically organised for the president to engage university students on a controversial new cost-sharing funding model that critics warn will make needy students drop out.
In his latest high-profile public appointments, Dr Ruto picked his long-time digital strategist and propagandist, Dennis Itumbi, to head a new office of creative economy and special projects.
The office has been tasked with rolling out the youth-focused town hall meetings countrywide and amplifying the successes of the government’s job creation efforts through programmes such as affordable housing, digital hubs, migrant labour export and public service internships.
President Ruto has in recent public meetings also announced plans to reintroduce the mass youth employment programme, popular as Kazi kwa Vijana (work for youth), targeting young people rural areas and urban slums.
The programme, which was first implemented with World Bank funding in 2009 to tackle the youth unemployment in the country, recruits young people to work on community projects such as tree planting, garbage collection, and building or repairing infrastructure and public amenities.
It hasn’t been all smooth sailing for the president on his rebranding mission.
At every town meeting so far, he has been confronted with the uncomfortable questions about widespread human rights violations by police during the Gen-Z protests, including killings, abductions and enforced disappearances.
