What Gen Z protests reveal about Kenya’s democracy

Kenya’s democratic resilience is best understood not as a linear success story, but as the uneven outcome of three interacting—and frequently strained—forms of accountability: vertical, horizontal, and diagonal. Vertical accountability includes two interrelated mechanisms of political competition—elections and political parties—while horizontal refers to the balance of power among the executive, legislature, judiciary, and oversight bodies. Diagonal accountability includes actors from civil society, religious organizations, media, professional associations, and broader forms of civic participation. These interactive forms of accountability have played a critical role in sustaining Kenya’s democratic resilience, albeit with periodic regression and contestation across regimes since the reintroduction of multiparty politics in 1992. Taken together, these accountability mechanisms have not consistently constrained power, nor have they operated in harmony across political periods. Instead, Kenya’s democratic trajectory since 1992 has been marked by cycles of contestation, regression, and partial recovery. It is precisely through this contentious and adaptive interplay—rather than institutional robustness alone—that Kenya’s political system has managed, at critical moments, to absorb shocks, renegotiate elite pacts, and intermittently reopen civic space under conditions of intense political stress.

While all three forms of accountability interact and shape governance outcomes, this blog focuses on Kenya’s democratic resilience in the wake of the Gen Z protests. Since taking power in September 2022, President William Ruto has increasingly undermined democratic norms by following a familiar playbook associated with previous regimes: political manipulation, intimidation of dissent, corruption, abuse of human rights, and sustained attacks on the judiciary.

In response to this, diagonal accountability has been activated through civil society resistance to socioeconomic policies perceived as exclusionary. President Ruto inherited an economy in distress, characterized by rising inflation (7.7% in 2022); escalating unemployment (4.9% in 2022), particularly among the youth; and widening income inequality. Instead of prioritizing policies to stimulate inclusive growth under his “bottom-up” economic agenda, the administration focused on aggressive revenue-raising measures. This policy shift intensified economic grievances, particularly among Gen Z, who mobilized through digital platforms—mainly X (formerly Twitter) and Tiktok—demanding fiscal accountability, transparency, and meaningful public participation. These grievances culminated in nationwide protests and the unprecedented invasion of parliament on June 25, 2024.

After this outcry, President Ruto conceded to public pressure by shelving the Finance Bill and dissolving the entire cabinet. However, this concession was subsequently undermined when several dismissed cabinet secretaries were reassigned to other senior public positions, triggering renewed protests. This order of events brought to the fore the struggle in Kenya’s democratic resilience: popular mobilization can cause short-term wins, but the executive retains capacity to reconfigure power through elite manipulation.

Recent developments suggest the emergence of new repertoires of political contestation. The June 2024 Gen Z protests recalibrated diagonal accountability by demonstrating the power of digitally coordinated, leaderless, and issue-based mobilization. Unlike previous protest movements anchored in ethnic blocs or opposition party structures, the Gen Z protests were amorphous, cross-ethnic, and rooted in shared generational frustrations over economic precarity, corruption, and political exclusion. This kind of civic engagement signals wider shifts in political engagement, where legitimacy is derived from collectively articulated moral claims voiced on digital platforms.  

The immediate outcomes—policy reversal and cabinet dissolution—underscore the potential of this new mode of diagonal accountability to influence governance. Yet the regime responded by consolidating power through elite pacts, including rapprochement with opposition leader Raila Odinga and the incorporation of allies linked to both Odinga and former President Uhuru Kenyatta into government. While this elite accommodation reduced tensions among political elites, many youth activists and civil society actors perceived it as the recycling of elite bargains at the expense of structural reforms. Consequently, protests continued, indicating the declining effectiveness of elite pacts amid demands for meaningful change.

At the same time, threats to democratic resilience have emerged. The regime’s efforts to silence critical voices through digital surveillance, abductions, intimidation of activists, and interference with judicial independence signal a shrinking civic space. Indeed, these practices risk undermining the same accountability mechanisms that have traditionally anchored Kenya’s democratic resilience. Nonetheless, contextual pressures—especially poor economic performance, high cost of living, unemployment, and inequality—may continue to generate opportunities for deeper civic engagement. Whether these pressures lead to democratic renewal or authoritarian tendencies will hinge on adaptability of institutional accountability mechanisms and continued engagement of Gen Z-led civic activism in reshaping Kenya’s political trajectory.