| Since taking power in 2022, Kenya President William Ruto has spent a lot of time establishing himself as Africa's preeminent statesman while engaging with foreign creditors in an effort to repair the nation's strained finances. Until recently, he'd made remarkable progress on both fronts. Ruto, 57, has hosted the inaugural pan-African climate summit and became the first African leader in 16 years to secure an official US state visit. He has sent Kenyan police to try and quash gang violence in Haiti, refinanced eurobonds, won the promise of relief from the International Monetary Fund and engineered a rally in his nation's stocks and currency. But a few days can change everything. Now he's facing protests by thousands of young Kenyans demanding his removal after a bloody, aborted attempt to impose new taxes. The levies, which would have raised the price of goods as basic as bread and diapers, triggered furious nationwide demonstrations. At least 41 people were killed in clashes with police and soldiers before Ruto eventually backed down. With his previously polished image now sullied, he must pick up the pieces—if he can.  William Ruto, Kenya's president, at the COP28 climate conference at Expo City in Dubai in December. Photographer: Annie Sakkab/Bloomberg Ruto's planned tax increases were to be the latest in a series of levies that have already strained the pocketbooks of ordinary Kenyans. His affinity for new taxes has earned him the nickname Zakayo—Swahili for the biblical revenue collector Zacchaeus. But his credibility had taken hits even before the demonstrations and subsequent police killings of protestors. Ruto had originally touted the need for austerity. A month ago, he told citizens in a speech that "I must lead from the front as I tell others to tighten up their belts. Mine must be where to begin." This sentiment of shared sacrifice came as he was trying to shove through a 17% increase in the budget for his wife's office. That measure, along with other perks, has since been scrapped. Meanwhile, the Kenya Private Sector Alliance said ahead of the tax protests that revenue from the planned hikes could be sourced by cutting waste and non-essential expenditures rather than further burdening a population already crushed by high prices. Ruto's arguably hypocritical attitude when it came to taxing the poor while funding his wife's office (she's not an elected official) understandably angered Kenyans. Many are unemployed, and those who have jobs in the private sector have seen their wages, when adjusted for inflation, fall 9% since 2019.  Flowers left as a tribute to a protester killed by Kenyan police during protests in Nairobi last month. Photographer: Kang-Chun Cheng/Bloomberg Repairing the country's finances—left in a dire state by his predecessor— was a priority for Ruto. But the manner and pace by which he acted has left him in a tenuous position at best. The brutality of the police response to the demonstrations has earned him loathing at home—particularly from younger Kenyans. He has since tried to open a national dialogue with the country's youth in a bid to restore stability, but so far his attempts at conciliation have made little progress. And when it comes to the wider world, he also faces an uphill climb. Soon, Ruto may need to return to international markets to fill the $2.3 billion hole the tax bill's absence leaves in his budget. On Friday, Ruto said Kenya's National Treasury will slash expenditures and take on more loans to compensate for the bill's withdrawal. The Treasury will cut spending by 177 billion shillings ($1.38 billion) and borrow the balance, he said. Ruto is not the first African leader to have to backtrack on an economic program—Nigeria's Bola Tinubu had to partially restore gasoline subsidies he had slashed shortly after taking power in 2022 to head off unrest. His effort was ostensibly to fill budget holes caused by spendthrift predecessors. But it has become apparent that a growing numbers of Africans are understandably reluctant to pay the price for the profligacy of their political leaders. While national finances do have to be put on a sound footing, it bears reminding that such measures must be sustainable, and their burden shared equally if they are to last. —Antony Sguazzin Get the Bloomberg Evening Briefing: Sign up here to receive Bloomberg's flagship briefing in your mailbox daily—along with our Weekend Reading edition on Saturdays. Big Take Asia: Every Tuesday on the new Big Take Asia podcast, Bloomberg reports on the critical stories at the heart of the world's most dynamic economies, delivering insight into markets, tycoons and businesses driving growth across the region. You can also listen daily to powerful Bloomberg deep-dives on the original Big Take podcast and hear fresh takes on what's going on in Washington every Thursday on the Big Take DC podcast. | 
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