The storming of the Kenyan parliament building by revolutionary youth last week stunned the world and left Kenyan politicians and the ruling class in a state of panic and disarray. Brute force could not clear the masses off the streets. The regime has been forced to resort to new methods: a sly combination of deception, manoeuvres and provocations.

In an address delivered today, Kenya’s president, William Ruto, announced that he will not sign into law the Finance Bill, which was passed in parliament yesterday, in the face of an insurrectionary movement of the Kenyan masses.

Today, the hated Finance Bill 2024, which sparked an unprecedented movement of Kenyan youth last week, was brought before parliament for its third and final reading. Before the session began, enormous throngs were descending on Nairobi Central Business District, heading for the parliament building. At 2.15pm, MPs passed the bill by 195 votes to 106. Within 40 minutes, the insurrectionary masses had stormed parliament and MPs were fleeing in panic.

Big events are rocking Kenya. The government of William Ruto – faithful servant of Washington, the IMF and the World Bank – is attempting to shove punitive taxes down the throats of the masses. And his government has reaped an explosion of the youth, which has spontaneously flooded the streets of every major town and city. There are revolutionary elements in the situation, and many are talking of Sri Lanka coming to Kenya.

Throughout the self-proclaimed ‘civilised’ western world, the ruling classes have banded together to denounce Hamas’ attack on Israel on 7 October and have rallied around Israel’s ‘right of self-defence’ as it bombs Gaza to smithereens. But this is not the first time we have been told to accept a bloody war against an oppressed people in the name of the oppressor nation’s ‘self-defence’.

William Ruto was sworn in as Kenya's fifth president on Tuesday 13 September, a week after the Supreme Court rejected a challenge by his opponent in a close-fought election, in which Ruto received 50.5 percent of the vote against 48.8 percent for Raila Odinga. Neither of these reactionary bourgeois politicians offered any way forward for the Kenyan masses, who face increasingly intolerable conditions.

Until recently Kenya was held up as a glowing example of the success of the free market economy. It was supposed to be a shining example of democracy, a beacon of hope for what Europeans used to call "the dark continent." Now all these dreams lay in ashes. In recent weeks Kenya has been torn asunder by a wave of ethnic and tribal violence that has claimed nearly a thousand lives.