The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years, as global skepticism toward financial institutions deepens in light of widening income inequality and pervasive elite corruption. While the IMF presents itself as committed to safeguarding nations’ economic security and promoting sustainable growth in developing economies, its interventions particularly through Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) and conditional lending tied to austerity measures, has drawn criticism for intensifying socioeconomic disparities. Austerity policies, which enforce public spending cuts and higher taxes, have deepened inequalities, fueled cost-of-living crises, and triggered social unrest in many countries. In Kenya, IMF-mandated fiscal consolidation pressured the government to adopt the controversial Finance Bill 2024, which aimed to raise an additional $2.4 billion US dollars to service debt, largely owed to the IMF and World Bank by introducing regressive taxes on essential goods like bread, sanitary pads, and fuel to meet revenue targets. Though justified as necessary to fund education and healthcare budget increases, these measures disproportionately burdened low-income households, sparking nationwide protests under the #RejectFinanceBill2024 movement. This research paper argues that IMF conditionalities have contributed to political instability in Kenya. To support this argument, the analysis draws on three key periods in Kenya’s post colonial history: the 1980s and 1990s under President Daniel arap Moi, the 2000s under President Mwai Kibaki and the present day under President William Ruto.

IMF conditional lending was conceived to stabilize economies experiencing balance of payments problems, which are defined as when a country cannot meet its international financial obligations due to a deficit in trade, investment or foreign currency reserves. Since the 1980s, however, these programs have expanded into far-reaching SAPs that demand market liberalization, public sector downsizing, and fiscal austerity as prerequisites for financing. In theory, SAPSs should focus on reducing fiscal balances, promoting long term sustainable growth and adapting economies to global markets. In reality, they often inflict acute social pain involving austerity policies such as cutting government spending on essential services like education and healthcare, as well as increasing taxes on basic goods. Empirical studies confirm a causal link between structural adjustment programs and political instability, identifying two main pathways: “hardship effects,” where the material deprivation caused by austerity fuels grievances and protest, and “alienation effects,” where the foreign-imposed nature of the reforms breeds resentment against the government for ceding sovereignty (Reinsberg et al. 2022, 2). Both mechanisms have been observed in Africa and beyond. For instance, when Jordan cut bread subsidies under an IMF program, riots ensued; in Ecuador, IMF-advised fuel price hikes in 2019 led to such intense demonstrations that the government was forced to temporarily flee the capital (Reinsberg et al. 2022, 2). These outcomes illustrate that while SAPs aim to restore macroeconomic stability, their socially disruptive effects often undermine political stability, leading to resistance, unrest, and in some cases, government crises.

Kenya’s experience is a microcosm of this global phenomenon. Each wave of IMF-mandated reforms during these three periods of governance, from the early SAPs of the 1980s to the austerity measures of the 2020s has generated political tremors. Hindsight, it is crucial to note why Kenya is particularly susceptible to the instability effects of conditionality. Since independence in 1963, Kenya’s political system has been characterized by patronage networks, ethnic clientelism, and periodic protests when the distribution of economic resources are not transparent. In this context, IMF conditions, which by design require expenditure cuts and the removal of subsidies are not just technocratic adjustments but directly affect patronage flows and the welfare of different constituencies, therefore increasing political stakes. The following sections provide a historical analysis of how Kenyan administrations have managed (or failed to manage) this situation, and how IMF conditions acted as an accelerant or catalyst for social unrest.

Kenya’s first encounter with IMF structural adjustment in the 1980s vividly illustrates how conditionalities designed to stabilize the economy instead contributed to political instability; Under President Daniel arap Moi, IMF-imposed austerity collapsed growth, fueled social unrest, enabled authoritarian crackdowns, and ultimately undermined the legitimacy of his regime.

The IMF’s initial prescriptions directly triggered Kenya’s economic collapse in the early 1980s. In exchange for its 1982 Structural Adjustment Loan (SAL), the Fund required Moi’s government to slash public spending, remove subsidies, and deregulate prices, arguing that fiscal discipline was necessary to restore balance-of-payments stability (Ford 2024). These cuts disproportionately targeted social sectors because they were among the largest components of Kenya’s budget, leading to a reduction of education spending from 22.6% to 18.7% and healthcare from 7.6% to 5.4% (Oyugui et al. n.d.). The sudden withdrawal of state support decreased demand, stunted agricultural output , and increased inflation, driving GDP growth down from 7.9% in 1978 to 2.3% in 1983, while annual inflation rose from 11.6% to 15.3% (Oyugui et al. n.d.; World Data). By 1985, the shilling had depreciated drastically and could buy only 43% of its 1979 value, eroding households' purchasing power. These economic shocks were not coincidental but rather the direct consequences of IMF-enforced austerity, which prioritized “smaller budget deficits, limited expansion of domestic credit and external commercial borrowing, gradual removal of import control and exchange rate adjustments” over the welfare of ordinary Kenyans (World Bank 1985, 3). By designing policies that deliberately cut public services and subsidies, the IMF created the economic despair that culminated in a coup attempt in 1982. IMF conditionalities continued into the 1990s, but instead of bringing about the same degree of macroeconomic collapse, they created fiscal conditions that Moi's administration took advantage of; under the guise of fiscal restraint, the administration used severe budget cutbacks to higher education as a tool to undermine these institutions' independence and limit their capacity to organise against authoritarian control.

IMF conditionalities further destabilized Kenya in the 1990s by creating fiscal crises in public universities that authoritarian leaders exploited to silence intellectual dissent, reduce funding, and provoke extreme social unrest. Structural adjustment loans mandated sweeping public spending cuts to reduce deficits, with higher education hit particularly hard. Between 1995/96 and 1996/97, funding for public universities dropped from US $57.7 million to US $54.5 million (6.6%), even as enrollment rose (Ngome 2007, 850). To comply with IMF austerity, Moi’s government introduced tuition fees and reduced institutional support, placing the burden on students and their families. The impact was immediate unrest. In June 1991, all Kenyan public universities went on strike over tuition hikes and staff retrenchments, followed in November 1993 by a coordinated strike from academics at all four public universities demanding recognition of the Universities Academic Staff Union (UASU). Moi University alone recorded 24 strikes between 1985 and 2009, many linked directly to inadequate funding and unpaid staff salaries (Munene 2016, 91). Rather than addressing the grievances that arose because of IMF-mandated cuts to tuition subsidies and staff wages, Moi used SAP-driven unrest as a pretext for repression. Moi’s regime killed four students and arrested lecturers from the University of Nairobi, including five University of Nairobi and KUC lecturers held without charge or trial (HRW 2020, Amutabi 2002, 159; SAGE 1985, 42). Thus, the IMF’s austerity measures did not just weaken Kenya’s universities and civil society, but directly contributed to the unrest that Moi exploited to consolidate authoritarian control, demonstrating how IMF conditionalities translated economic pain into political repression. Beyond provoking unrest in universities and civil society, IMF conditionalities also reshaped Kenya’s political economy, as liberalization measures in the late 1980s and early 1990s opened new avenues for elite corruption that further eroded public trust and deepened political instability.

IMF-mandated liberalization in the late 1980s and early 1990s destabilized Kenya by creating a fertile ground for elite corruption on an unprecedented scale, resulting in a fiscal crisis that eroded public trust in the government. Under IMF pressure, Moi privatized 139 state-owned enterprises by 1991 and deregulated trade, ostensibly to reduce deficits and attract investment (Githahu 2024). Instead, rapid privatization enabled Moi's inner circle to convert state resources into a patronage machine by robbing the state of important revenue generating assets and selling them to politically connected bidders at below-market prices, while weakened trade and finance regulations allowed allied firms to access state credit, manipulate export schemes, and divert funds toward political loyalty rather than productive investments. A 2001 World Bank study revealed that the president personally contributed KSh 155 million ($2 million) to 635 fundraising events, with cabinet ministers dominating the top 20 donors, funds widely believed to have come from IMF-financed programs (World Bank 2006, 54–55). The most notorious abuse was the Goldenberg scandal, a fraudulent export compensation scheme in which Goldenberg International was paid a 35% “export compensation” (15% above the lawful limit), even though gold and diamonds were not covered under the Export Compensation Act (Maina 2019). The scandal siphoned off more than 10% of Kenya’s GDP, with a subsequent Kroll report estimating Moi himself diverted over £1 billion of state funds during his tenure (Rice 2007). At the same time, Moi’s regime established a network of “political banks” that siphoned money from the Central Bank to finance his Kenya Africa National Union party (KANU) election campaigns, doubling the money supply in six months (Berkeley 1996). Designed to instill fiscal discipline, these IMF-driven reforms instead produced the opposite as deficits ballooned from 6.7% of GDP in 1989/90 to 11.4% in 1992/93, while inflation reached 100% in August 1993 (IMF 1995; U.S. Department of State n.d.). By pushing rapid liberalization without institutional safeguards, the IMF legitimized the very mechanisms that enabled the Goldenberg scandal, turning its fiscal reforms into instruments for widespread dissatisfaction and elite corruption. Simultaneously, the Fund’s austerity measures deepened everyday hardship, transforming public anger into mass protest and ethnic violence.

IMF demands for fiscal retrenchment deepened Kenya’s fractures by layering acute social hardship onto the political repression of Moi’s one-party state, creating an unstable environment that made unrest inevitable. Central to the Fund’s conditionalities was the elimination of food subsidies, a measure meant to curb the budget deficit but one that struck at the heart of household survival. The removal of maize subsidies led to a 40% surge in maize prices within six months, with a further 20% increase in wholesale maize prices soon after (IMF 1995). For Kenyan families, maize is a staple of daily life, and its sudden unaffordability ignited widespread hardship. This economic pressure intensified the public anger that fueled the Saba Saba demonstrations of July 7 1990, when 20 protesters demanding multiparty democracy were killed and over 1,000 arrested by police (Amnesty International n.d.). Without IMF-mandated subsidy cuts and public service retrenchment, the grievances—economic strain, shrinking access to public services and political exclusion—that Moi weaponized into ethnic violence would not have reached such explosive levels. 

By highlighting the injustice behind Kenya’s pro‑democracy struggle, ensuring that calls for political reform were inseparable from demands for economic justice. Crucially, rather than uniting the country through economic reform, SAPs intensified grievances and heightened intercommunal distrust as the IMF-mandated public service cuts disproportionately affected Luo strongholds. Scholars indeed note that Kenya’s adjustment policies in the early 1990s coincided with growing inequality, inflation, and increasing ethnic discrimination, with marginalized communities bearing a disproportionate share of the burden (Rono 2007, 81). Facing multiparty elections in 1992 and 1997, Moi channeled the resentment unleashed by IMF‑driven austerity into ethnic divisions, deploying Kalenjin militias against Kikuyu strongholds to suppress opposition turnout (Mueller 2022). Between 1991 and 1993, these clashes left 1,500 dead –mainly Kikuyus, Luos and Luhyas–  and 300,000 displaced (Berkeley 1996). The tragedy also carried long-term implications. The 1997 unrest facilitated the rise of a young Kalenjin operative in Moi’s Youth for KANU ’92 movement—William Ruto, now Kenya’s president—emphasizing how IMF conditionalities not only destabilized the present but also shaped the trajectory of Kenya’s political future. In such a way, the ethnic violence of the early 1990s exposed how IMF austerity could inflame deep social divisions—but by the mid‑1990s, the withdrawal of IMF support would destabilize Moi’s regime by dismantling the very patronage networks he relied on to contain dissent.

By the mid-1990s, IMF conditionalities had moved beyond straining Kenya’s economy to actively dismantling the political structures Moi relied on to maintain control. After years of unmet governance reforms, and Moi’s failure to curb rampant graft, the Fund suspended lending in July 1997, cutting off the foreign capital Moi needed to sustain his patronage networks (U.S. Department of State n.d.). Desperate to regain support, Moi established the Anti-Corruption Authority in 1999, only for Kenya’s courts to declare it unconstitutional in 2000. The IMF responded by canceling its $150 million Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility, effectively severing ties. Without IMF funds, Moi could no longer finance his patronage system or contain the intensified public dissent. On October 10, 1997, in the spirit of “Saba Saba”, a movement dubbed the Second Liberation formed, mobilized  Kenyans into organized cells to end his dictatorship. The protests left 39 dead, 69 injured, and over 5000 arrested (Makhoka 2020). Thus, by first enforcing austerity that fueled grievances and then suspending funds that dismantled Moi’s patronage networks, the IMF both created and intensified the instability that ended his regime.

IMF conditionalities under President Mwai Kibaki restored Kenya’s credibility internationally but simultaneously entrenched political instability by constraining domestic policy space. When Kibaki assumed the presidency in 2002, Kenya’s economy was near collapse, with GDP growth at just 0.5% and debt exceeding 40% of GDP after decades of Moi-era economic sabotage (World Bank). To revive growth, Kibaki re‑engaged with the IMF, signing multiple facilities between 2003 and 2005—including a Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF), an Extended Credit Facility (ECF), and an Exogenous Shock Facility (ESF)—that provided hundreds of millions in concessional loans. Each program came with strict conditionalities: deficit reduction targets, monetary tightening, hiring freezes, privatization, and anti‑corruption legislation. These measures produced quick macroeconomic recovery—growth reached 5.9% by 2005 (World Bank). As the IMF noted, “prudent macroeconomic policies and a favorable external environment helped lift the economy after more than a decade of slow growth and declines in per capita income” (IMF 2007). Yet the IMF’s insistence on fiscal consolidation over flexibility meant that when a 2004 drought left 3 million Kenyans food-insecure (ISS 2018), Kibaki’s IMF‑mandated Stand‑By Arrangement (SBA) barred significant emergency spending. By forcing Kibaki to prioritize deficit ceilings over famine relief, the IMF directly undermined his government’s capacity to respond to crisis, fueling public mistrust and the perception that Kenya’s sovereignty had been ceded to external creditors. These constraints deepened inequality and rising living costs, pushing Kenyans from quiet frustration to open protest.

Kibaki’s presidency replaced Moi’s blunt political repression with an IMF-led austerity drive that prioritized temporary macroeconomic stability over addressing long-standing inequalities and rising living expenses. The Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) introduced by the IMF promised to integrate poverty reduction into a growth-oriented strategy, yet in practice austerity hollowed it out. By 2005 the bottom 10% survived on as little as KSh 3,331 (USD $25) annually while the wealthiest 10% controlled 47.7% of national expenditure, revealing stark disparities (IMF 1999; KNBS 2008, 286). IMF-backed instruments like the Exogenous Shocks Facility (ESF), designed to provide timely support to low-income countries during the 2008–09 crises, failed to protect Kenyan households (IMF 2006). Inflation still climbed from 26.6% to 31.5%, and the Consumer Price Index surged 3.51% in a single month, exposing how IMF programs secured fiscal indicators while leaving citizens defenseless (KNBS 2008, 1). This crisis was most visible in food markets. Maize flour prices rose 27%, erasing purchasing power and sparking the 2008 “Unga Revolution” riots (Musembi 2014). Austerity deepened further in 2011 when the IMF demanded removal of price controls and imposed a 16% VAT on fuel, pushing petrol prices from KES 95 to 112 per litre and inflation to 19.7% (Amboko 2023; Odongo 2012, 7; KNBS 2011). With the lowest quintile already spending 44% of their income on food, these conditions transformed everyday survival into crisis, leaving millions unable to afford basic fuel and flour. The ensuing protests were not impulsive outbursts but the predictable consequence of IMF-mandated taxes and deregulation that stripped households of economic security.

IMF-backed governance reforms under President Mwai Kibaki further entrenched elite impunity by promoting privatization and rapid liberalization without embedding credible accountability mechanisms, thereby fueling disillusionment and ultimately contributing to the 2007–08 post-election violence. While these reforms were intended to reduce fiscal burdens and enhance transparency, in practice they created lucrative opportunities for politically connected elites to capture state resources. Privatization opened public procurement to manipulation, allowing Kibaki’s close allies—including former Internal Security Minister Christopher Ndarathi Murungaru, Vice President Moody Awori, Finance Minister David Mwiraria, and Justice Minister Kiraitu Murungi—to exploit contracts for personal gain (Maina 2019). The Anglo-Leasing scandal (2004–2006) epitomized this dynamic: more than $770 million was siphoned through 18 fraudulent security contracts involving massive overpricing and non-delivery of goods (Maina 2019). Despite the IMF’s insistence on anti-corruption safeguards, not a single perpetrator was convicted—an outcome that reflected the weakness of Kenya’s judiciary, the protection of elites within government, and the failure of externally driven reforms to address entrenched patronage networks. As whistleblower John Githongo revealed, the scandal "went all the way to the top" and financed the 2007 election campaign, demonstrating how IMF-backed reforms not only enabled elite corruption but also undermined democracy itself (Maina 2019). For ordinary Kenyans, who were already enduring the sacrifices of IMF austerity, such scandals exposed the hypocrisy of reforms that demanded discipline from citizens while shielding elites from accountability. By producing growth without equity and deepening disillusionment, the Fund magnified electoral grievances into a nationwide crisis. These grievances—rooted in soaring living costs, entrenched corruption, and perceptions of state capture—were directly linked to IMF-imposed austerity and deregulation, and when layered onto ethnic inequities, they magnified mistrust in the state and fueled the 2007–08 post-election violence, which killed more than 1,000 and displaced 350,000 (World Bank 2009, 1). Although the IMF extended new assistance in 2008, its conditionalities left intact the systemic corruption and inequality that had fueled instability, ensuring that the risk of future political turmoil persisted.

The Kibaki era thus demonstrates the duality of IMF conditionalities: on one hand, they restored macroeconomic stability and donor credibility by successfully completing several programs aimed at poverty reduction and economic growth. On the other, they entrenched a model of growth without equity, where austerity forced the poor into deeper hardship, liberalization enabled corrupt elites to thrive, and unresolved grievances eroded trust in the state. Far from delivering lasting stability, IMF programs left behind a strained social compact that not only fueled the Unga riots and post‑election violence of 2007–08 but also paved the way for recurring unrest in the years that followed. 

Following the Kibaki era’s donor supervised reforms, IMF‑mandated austerity under President William Ruto’s debt management program laid the groundwork for Kenya’s largest wave of political unrest since the return of multiparty democracy in December 1991, as regressive tax hikes and social spending cuts pushed ordinary citizens to breaking point. When William Ruto took office in September 2022, Kenya’s debt crisis was acute: public debt had reached 70% of GDP, with 68% of government revenue consumed by debt service (National Treasury 2024, 15). With little fiscal space, Ruto inherited the IMF’s $3.9 billion, 38‑month Extended Facility Credit program approved in 2021, aimed at supporting economic recovery from COVID-19 and sought additional disbursements (Al Jazeera 2024). The IMF demanded fiscal consolidation at all costs, leaving Ruto no option but to pursue new revenue streams rather than increase social spending. The Finance Bill 2024 was drafted as a direct response to IMF revenue benchmarks aiming to raise KSh 302 billion ($2.4 billion) through regressive tax hikes by doubling VAT on fuel from 8% to 16%, reinstating a 16% VAT on bread and maize flour, taxing sanitary pads and small businesses, and introducing a 5% withholding tax on content creators (Mathini et al. 2024). Meanwhile, IMF ceilings forced an average of 11% cuts to vital social programs in education, agriculture, and disaster response, even as 2.8 million Kenyans faced acute food insecurity (ActionAid 2024; Muthomi 2025). Therefore, IMF conditions did not just shape the Finance Bill 2024, but directly set out its most painful provisions, ensuring the burden of austerity fell on ordinary Kenyans and directly manufacturing the conditions for mass unrest.

The eruption of the #RejectFinanceBill2024 protests demonstrated how IMF conditionalities translated economic austerity into mass political instability, forcing an unprecedented confrontation between citizens and the state. The Finance Bill 2024—drafted to meet IMF revenue benchmarks—would have raised the price of one liter of cooking oil by KSh 168, while also imposing a 16% VAT on previously untaxed essentials like sanitary pads and a 2.5% tax on motor vehicles, further reducing disposable income already eroded by the previous Finance Bill 2023 (Adhiambo 2024; Mathini et al. 2024). From June 18 to August 8, 2024, hundreds of thousands of Kenyans—mostly youth—mobilized in 43 of 47 counties (Nation Team 2024).On June 25, 2024, demonstrators stormed Parliament after 204 MPs backed the bill; in response Ruto invoked extraordinary measures, deploying the military without parliamentary approval. This action was widely condemned as unconstitutional and reminiscent of Moi‑era authoritarianism. Ruto’s hardline rhetoric—branding protesters “criminals” and their actions as “treasonous”—only hardened the protesters’ resolve (Madowo et al. 2024). Faced with overwhelming opposition, Ruto withdrew the Finance Bill within 12 hours, an unprecedented reversal that emphasized how IMF‑mandated austerity had destabilized Kenya’s politics to the point of crisis. Yet the dramatic withdrawal of the Finance Bill did not end the crisis; instead, the state’s violent crackdown on demonstrators—marked by mass arrests, abductions and the use of live ammunition—exposed how IMF‑driven austerity was undermining not only livelihoods but the fabric of Kenya’s democracy and sovereignty. 

The state’s attempt to suppress the anti‑tax protests further eroded Kenya’s democratic image and exposed how IMF-conditionalities can destabilize Kenya’s democracy by pushing the government toward violent repression. By July 1, 2024, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights reported 39 people killed, 361 injured, 32 abducted, and over 627 arrested (Mule 2024). Images of police firing live bullets and tear gas on protestors spread globally, signaling that IMF-driven austerity—while in economic form—was producing profound political consequences when enforced through state violence. Yet the struggle was not only about taxes; it became a reckoning with Kenya’s sovereignty. Protesters carried placards declaring, “Colonialism never ended” and “IMF, World Bank, stop modern day slavery,” framing austerity as a modern extension of external control. With more than half of export revenues servicing external debt instead of funding education, healthcare, or housing, Kenyans increasingly viewed IMF prescriptions as neocolonial impositions. Many invoked the legacy of the 1990 Saba Saba movement, portraying their fight as a struggle for economic uhuru (freedom). The rejection of the Finance Bill consequently marked a pivotal moment where IMF conditionalities were publicly identified not just as poor economic policy, but as tools of economic colonialism that threatened Kenya’s sovereignty, democracy, and long‑term stability. By fusing anger over external dictates with disillusionment about domestic corruption, the protests demonstrated how IMF conditionalities interact with entrenched governance flaws to amplify corruption, patronage and mass unrest. 

The #RejectFinanceBill2024 protests also revealed how IMF conditionalities, by colliding with Kenya’s entrenched governance failures, transformed economic austerity into a political legitimacy crisis. In 2022/23, 21.8% of non‑competitive public service appointments went to Ruto’s Kalenjin tribe (Goin 2024) exemplifying how external austerity reinforced a patronage system already plagued by corruption. Protestors captured this alignment of external dictates and internal graft in placards declaring, “Finance Bill is Professional Theft,” framing IMF tax demands as indistinguishable from domestic kleptocracy. This dynamic reflected what Randall (2004, 45) describes as a “syndrome” of postcolonial governance in this way marked by authoritarianism, clientelism, and recurring instability. By imposing harsh fiscal measures in a system already corroded by patronage, the IMF did not just intensify economic strain but also magnified existing governance flaws into widespread political unrest. Thus, the protests demonstrated how IMF conditionalities act as triggers that worsen corruption, erode legitimacy and destabilize Kenyan politics rather than functioning in a vacuum.. 

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The Ruto era marked a continuation of the same destabilizing dynamics that IMF conditionalities had produced under Moi and Kibaki, but also introduced a turning point in Kenya’s political trajectory. Like Moi’s austerity in the 1980s and Kibaki’s food and fuel riots in the 2000s, Ruto’s Finance Bill crisis showed how externally imposed fiscal discipline, when pursued without regard for social realities, ignites unrest. In mid-2024, protesters explicitly identified the IMF conditionalities as the direct outcome of their hardship, carrying placards denouncing “modern-day slavery” and “economic colonialism.” This shift was evident beyond placards; it was audible in chants of “Ruto Must Go!” and organized digitally through hashtags like #RejectFinanceBill2024—which generated over 15 million engagements on X (formerly twitter), 1.6 million on Facebook and 6.5 million on Instagram between June 23-29, 2024, (DFRLab 2024). These hashtags, alongside #OccupyParliament became vehicles for Kenyans to circulate analyses directly tying VAT hikes and new taxes to the IMF’s loan conditions, raising awareness and galvanizing Kenyans to protest. Their mobilization peaked in the storming of Parliament on June 25, 2024 and led President Ruto to concede—for the first time, a mass movement had forced a complete reversal of an IMF-inspired policy. This revealed not only the depth of instability IMF programs can produce, but also a new political consciousness—one in which Kenyans no longer view economic crises as mere governance failures, but as effects of external economic control. In short, the IMF’s conditionalities under Ruto pushed the country to the brink of democratic breakdown, proving the Fund’s central role in fueling political instability, until Kenyans put a halt to the Bill.

Building on the patterns through Moi and Kibaki, the Ruto era confirms Kenya's four-decade experiment with IMF conditionalities has not delivered stability but instead entrenched cycles of political unrest. Rather than nurturing sustainable development, the IMF has perfected debt dependence forcing successive Kenyan governments—most visibly in the wake of the 2024 protests—to choose between economic decolonization or perpetual austerity. From Moi’s era of structural adjustment as repression (1980s–90s) to Kibaki’s donor-supervised yet socially divisive programs (2000s), and finally to Ruto’s violently contested Finance Bill (2024), IMF interventions have followed a destructive and predictable pattern. At each stage, IMF conditions not only ignored Kenya’s unique socio-economic realities but actively aggravated inequality, eroded government legitimacy, and contributed to political instability. 

Seemingly successful programs like Kibaki’s PRGF proved hollow as VAT hikes and subsidy removals mandated by the IMF sparked the 2011 food and fuel riots, exposing the unbearable social costs of fiscal discipline. Likewise, the 2024 Finance Bill, designed solely to meet IMF revenue targets, triggered a nationwide movement and violent state response. Kenya’s downgrade from B3 to Caa1 under Ruto, signaling “very high credit risk” (Kimani 2024), emphasizes the IMF’s broader failure to deliver sustainable development and reinforces what the #RejectFinanceBill2024 movement declared: debt is the new technique of colonialism. 

After decades of reform, Kenya remains trapped in a cycle of debt, dependency, and instability. As Khaboub (2024) provocatively asks, this raises the question of whether this is due to incompetence or an intentional design of economic entrapment. IMF conditionalities have not only weakened Kenya’s economic sovereignty, but aggravated the very instability they claimed to prevent, with austerity measures breeding mass protests and liberalization enabling graft. Today, 8,300 individuals control more wealth than 44 million citizens, and the top 10% earns 23% more than the poorest 10% (Oxfam n.d.)—evidence that these policies have functioned less as development tools than as instruments of class warfare, channeling wealth upward while pushing instability downward. 

Nothing less than a revolution in global economic governance is necessary to break this cycle. Adjustment programs must be co-designed with national legislatures, equity impact assessments must precede austerity measures, and debt cancellation must replace perpetual servicing. Kenya’s experience illustrates how, when applied in contexts of weak institutions, IMF programs amplify inequality and political instability rather than fostering growth. Comparative evidence reinforces this point while meta-analyses show that IMF programs can yield modest long-term growth in countries with strong institutions (Balima & Sokolova 2021), in weak systems like Kenya’s they instead deepen social fractures and undermine political stability. Without such reforms, IMF conditionalities will continue what Kenyans now describe as economic terrorism: the systematic sacrifice of democratic prospects for creditor balance sheets. The situation in Kenya is not an exception; rather, it serves as a warning: instability will be the price of compliance as long as austerity is the cost of aid.

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