July 7 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Kenyan Police have begun to charge with tear gas against the opposition protesters who have been concentrated since early in the morning in Nairobi, Mombasa and other cities in the country in a new wave of protests against the Government.
The protests are taking place on Saba Saba Day, which commemorates 1990 demonstrations against then-autocrat Daniel arap Moi. On this occasion, it is one more episode in the long conflict between the opposition coalition Azmio La Umoja – One Kenya and, in particular, the great opposition leader Raila Odinga, against the country’s president, William Ruto.
Odinga will appear shortly in Nairobi to make an announcement highly anticipated by his supporters: the beginning of a national signature campaign to demand the full resignation of the Government, with Ruto at the helm. His event at the Kamukunji Historical Grounds is the only one that the Police have approved to this day. The rest of the concentrations were illegal this week by the authorities, as confirmed late on Thursday by the head of the Nairobi Regional Police, Adamson Bungei, in comments collected by the Kenyan newspaper ‘The Nation’.
The opposition coalition has turned a deaf ear and summoned its supporters in the main cities of the country, starting with the capital, as well as in the central and eastern regions and the entire Rift Valley strip that crosses the country from north to south. The clashes have not resulted in victims so far but are especially intense in municipalities such as Kisii or Sinyalu, according to local residents reported to the newspaper.
Odinga thus launches a new ordeal at the Government and with his political nemesis, President Ruto, once again using economic discontent as a spearhead against the Executive and, especially, the increase in fuel prices. A hint of rapprochement between the two, which occurred last May, has finally ended on deaf ears.
