Ruto at Four: The Promises Kept, the Promises Broken and the Promises Nobody Remembers

Let me start with what is genuinely true. The Affordable Housing Programme, for all its controversy and court battles, has produced more publicly subsidised housing units than any Kenyan government before it. The Hustler Fund, derided by economists as politically motivated, has reached millions of informal workers who never had access to formal credit. The fertiliser subsidy programme drove farm input costs down at a critical time. These are real things. They happened.

Now the failures, and let me be equally direct. The Gen Z protests of 2024 — young Kenyans marching against a finance bill that symbolised a government taxing the poor to pay debts accumulated by the connected — exposed a profound disconnect between Ruto's "hustler" branding and his government's actual fiscal choices. The government's response, including the abductions and killings that followed the protests, was a stain that has not been cleaned.

The abductions continue. Journalists. Activists. Critics of specific procurement decisions. Kenya's human rights culture has regressed measurably under this administration. The government denies responsibility for individual cases and points to DCI investigations. The investigations rarely produce prosecutions.

On the economy: 5.3 percent GDP growth sounds good. It would sound better if it were felt in the pocket. Inflation has been moderate but persistent. The cost of a two-kilo packet of unga has risen. The cost of cooking gas has risen. School fees have risen. And wages — outside the public sector — have not kept pace.

The honest verdict after four years is that Ruto has been a more consequential president than his 2022 critics predicted and a less transformative one than his 2022 supporters hoped. He has moved things. Some of those things have been in the right direction. Some have not. The country deserves a 2027 election where that complexity is actually debated — not buried under slogans.