Kenya Kwanza know they’ve lost half their supporters already - MP Kibagendi

Kitutu Chache South MP Anthony Kibagendi says President William Ruto’s Kenya Kwanza government knows it has lost supporters since taking over power over failure to fulfil its promises.

Kibagendi says Kenya Kwanza – which campaigned on a platform of lowering the cost of living, cutting on borrowing and providing jobs to the youth – has instead turned against Kenyans by introducing the contentious Finance Act, 2023 and borrowing even more than the previous regimes did in their first year in power.

“This government has gone ahead to break every promise they gave to their supporters and Kenyans in general. They know they have lost literally half of the support they had,” the MP told Citizen TV during a panel discussion on Thursday’s Day Break program.

In Kibagendi’s view, this has made the Ruto regime blasé about engaging with the opposition Azimio La Umoja One Kenya coalition over the high cost of living.

“That is why they have this hardline stance; they don’t care about what Kenyans are going through in terms of the cost of living. They keep giving us lip service and excuses about the former regime,” the MP said.

“We also had ideas about how to transform this country; they seem clueless and we intended to give them ideas about how to do his,” Kibagendi added, referring to the bipartisan talks Kenya Kwana and Azimio announced last week they would resume to resolve their differences.

This was after months of street demonstrations called by the opposition to picket Ruto’s government against the high cost of living and increased taxation, which left at least 20 people dead.

Odinga previously called off demonstrations in April and May after Ruto agreed in principle to a dialogue which has failed to materialise, with both sides accusing each other of sabotage.

Ruto’s administration seeks to borrow Ksh.3.6 trillion in his first five-year term, which is 89 per cent of the record Ksh.4.1 trillion former president Uhuru Kenyatta’s government borrowed in its last term.

It is also more than the Ksh.2.7 trillion Kenyatta borrowed in his first term and the Ksh.1 trillion that the late Mwai Kibaki borrowed in his last five-year term.

This has raised concerns as Kenyans expected Ruto’s administration to go slow on fresh borrowing amid fresh measures to increase its tax collections.

Anthony Kibagendi – MP, Kitutu Chache South: The Kenya Kwanza gov't is acting as a hardliner in terms of cost of living because they are aware that they have lost more than half of their support due to their broken promises to Kenyans #DayBreak @TrevorOmbija pic.twitter.com/ATwKNAPvDc