Kenyan President William Ruto appointed his foreign minister as “acting cabinet secretary” for all ministries on Wednesday, nearly a week after dissolving almost his entire cabinet in an effort to calm deadly anti-government protests.
The East African nation was left reeling when peaceful protests last month against heavy tax increases devolved into violence, killing dozens and leaving Ruto with the most serious crisis of his leadership.
In an effort to control the consequences, he has taken a number of steps, including rejecting the financial package that contained the tax increases, declaring government cuts, and sacking nearly all of his cabinet last week.
“Musalia Mudavadi… is assigned as the Acting Cabinet Secretary in all vacant Ministerial Portfolios,” according to a government Gazette Notice dated 12 July, signed by the president, and released on Wednesday.
Mudavadi, who holds the post of Prime Cabinet Secretary and Foreign Minister, survived the cabinet purge on 11 July 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, he said, would help him to develop “radical programmes” to address 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 that it would “not be part of the proposed broad-based or any other government.”
It stated that it was considering “a people-driven National Constitutional Convention as a possible pathway towards the resolution of the national crisis.”
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