Kenyan President William Samoei Arap Ruto has appointed his foreign minister as the “acting cabinet secretary” for all ministries, nearly a week after dismissing almost his entire cabinet.
This move comes in response to deadly anti-government rallies triggered by steep tax increases.
The peaceful protests, which took place last month, escalated into violence, resulting in dozens of deaths and presenting Ruto with the most significant crisis of his presidency.
Scrambling to contain the fallout, he has embarked on a series of measures, including scrapping the finance bill containing the tax hikes, announcing government cuts, and last week dismissing almost all of his cabinet.
“Musalia Mudavadi… is assigned as the Acting Cabinet Secretary in all vacant Ministerial Portfolios,” according to a government Gazette Notice dated July 12, signed by the president, and released Wednesday.
Mudavadi, who holds the post of prime cabinet secretary and foreign minister, survived the cabinet purge on July 11 along with Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.
Following the resignations, Ruto said that he would “immediately engage in extensive consultations across different sectors and political formations, with the aim of setting up a broad-based government”.
This government would, he said, help him to develop “radical programmes” to deal with the country’s huge debt burden, increase job opportunities, eliminate government waste and “slay the dragon of corruption”.
However, the main opposition coalition Azimio said on Wednesday evening it would “not be part of proposed broad-based or any other government”.
It said that it had considered “a people-driven National Constitutional Convention as a possible pathway towards the resolution of the national crisis”.
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