he asked in post on X<\/a> calling for the institution of the presidency to be respected.<\/p>\nKenyan media are reporting that three people have been arrested, but the police have not confirmed this.<\/p>\n
Some MPs have also criticised the shoe-throwing, which has been described as a major security lapse.<\/p>\n
The president was addressing a crowd at a public event in the western county of Migori as part of a three-day tour of the region where he has been launching and commissioning development projects.<\/p>\n
While the views of some ordinary Kenyans chime with the feeling that the shoe-throwing was disrespectful, others have suggested that it reflected frustrations over the state of the economy.<\/p>\n
An official video of the event shared by the president on X does not show the shoe incident, which appears to have happened off-camera.<\/p>\n
However, commotion within the crowd is briefly seen. The president is heard asking his security officers, who may have been about to look for the culprit, to leave the people in the audience alone.<\/p>\n
The screen then goes blank before and minutes later the video shows other people speaking at the rally.<\/p>\n
The shoe-throwing comes amid growing concerns over the safety of public officials. Last week, an opposition MP was shot dead last week in the capital, Nairobi, by gunmen on a motorcycle in a suspected assassination.<\/p>\n
Nelson Koech, an MP in the president\u2019s party, said Sunday\u2019s incident was an \u201caffront to our democracy\u201d adding that \u201cwe have taken a joke too far\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can imagine if that shoe was a bullet\u2026 people joke about the security of the president. It took a very bold step for someone to take their shoe and throw it at the president.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must secure the head of state,\u201d he told local station Citizen TV.<\/p>\n
Migori is in a region considered to be a stronghold of veteran opposition politician Raila Odinga, who ran against Ruto in the 2022 presidential election, but who has since made a deal with the president.<\/p>\n
The agreement signed in March between Odinga and Ruto was \u201cto help ease the prevailing tension in the country\u201d, following deadly anti-tax demonstrations last year.<\/p>\n
Since he became president in 2022, Ruto has faced protests from Kenyans frustrated with the cost of living and increased taxes.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Kenyan government has described as \u201cshameful\u201d an incident in which a shoe was thrown at President William Ruto during a rally on Sunday. Widely shared video clips show the footwear striking the president\u2019s left arm as he held it aloft while he was speaking. Government spokesman Isaac Mwaura condemned what happened and called for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114616\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}