Kenyan police arrest opposition politicians

Kenyan police fired tear gas, arrested several senior opposition politicians as hundreds of people protested against President William Ruto.

The opposition politicians are protesting against the high cost of living and claims of cheating in 2022 election.

Raila Odinga, who lost to Ruto in August’s poll, has urged nationwide protests as he attempts to harness dissatisfaction with the president.

The discontented include some of those who voted for Ruto and feel he has not delivered on pledges to help the country’s forgotten “hustlers’’ or working class Kenyans.

Police officers in riot gear fired tear gas at hundreds of rock-throwing protesters in the capital Nairobi’s vast Kibera slum, who chanted: “Ruto must go’’.

They also used tear gas to disperse demonstrators trying to gather in the Central Business District, from where Odinga had called for a march toward the president’s State House residence, Reuters reporters said.

In the western city of Kisumu, an Odinga stronghold, police fired barrages of tear gas in the direction of protesters who had started fires in the road, footage on Citizen TV showed.

Atleast, four members of parliament were arrested during protests in Nairobi, including the minority leaders of the National Assembly and Senate, Odinga’s spokesman, Dennis Onyango, said.

Nairobi police chief Adamson Bungei said he would have details about the arrests later in the day.

In spite Ruto’s promises to bring down living costs since taking power in September, inflation has remained high in East Africa’s economic powerhouse, rising to 9.2 per cent in February.

Ruto had said his government was laying the foundations of a healthier economy, including by cutting reliance on borrowing.

Odinga, who has lost five presidential elections, had cast the demonstration as an opportunity to protest the August vote, which he said was tainted by fraud.

He challenged the results in the Supreme Court in 2022, but the court affirmed Ruto’s victory and there was little of the violence that marred elections in 2007 and 2017.