As other African countries move away from the United States, disillusioned with democracy or drawn to rival powers, Kenyan President William Ruto arrives in Washington on Wednesday for a three-day state visit designed to showcase a staunch ally American on the continent.
A series of military coups, shaky elections and raging wars have upended Africa’s political landscape over the past year, giving an advantage to US rivals like Russia and China but also destroying the main argument of Washington: democracy.
In Niger, a recently installed military junta asked American troops to leave. Relations with once-strong U.S. allies like South Africa and Ethiopia are decidedly cool. The recent elections in Senegal, long considered a model of stability, were almost derailed.
Mr Ruto, the Biden administration hopes, is the antidote to this unrest.
Since coming to power two years ago, Mr Ruto, 57, has brought Kenya, East Africa’s economic powerhouse, ever closer to the United States. His visit is only the sixth state visit organized by the Biden administration, and the first for an African president since 2008.
In some ways, President Biden is atoning for a broken promise. At a high-profile Africa summit in Washington in December 2022, Mr Biden said he was “all in” on Africa and pledged to visit the continent the following year. The trip never took place.
By choosing Mr. Ruto, the Biden administration confirms that it considers the Kenyan leader to be one of its closest security, diplomatic and economic partners in Africa.
The two countries are cooperating closely to combat Al Shabab militants in Somalia. American giants like Google have major operations in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, which is also a hub of diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the chaos in neighboring countries like Sudan, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Very soon, Kenya is expected to begin deploying 1,000 paramilitary police to help trouble Haiti – a dangerous mission largely financed by the United States and which poses significant political risks to Mr Ruto if Kenyan personnel are injured or killed.
And Mr Ruto has deftly garnered US support for his outspoken advocacy on global issues such as debt relief, reform of international financial institutions and climate change, on which he is trying to build a reputation as the leading man State of Africa.
“We live the nightmare of climate change every day,” he said on Sunday in an interview with the New York Times, a few hours before flying to the United States. Nearly 300 Kenyans died last month as heavy rains hit the country, triggering floods that forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes.
“A year ago we were in the grip of a deep drought,” he said in the interview, speaking at an open pavilion next to State House, his official residence in Nairobi, as thunder rumbled and more rain fell. “This is the case for many countries on the continent.”
It hasn’t been long since Mr Ruto was seen as part of the problem in Kenya. Ten years ago, he was tried by the International Criminal Court, accused of having orchestrated the post-election violence which left more than 1,100 dead in Kenya. During the trial, his lawyer was Karim Khan, currently the court prosecutor. The United States supported the prosecutions, seeing it as an opportunity to end impunity within Kenya’s political class.
But the trial collapsed in 2016, after witnesses disappeared or changed, and Mr Ruto’s electoral triumphs overshadowed the national trial: he was elected vice-president in 2013 and 2018, then president in 2022.
“So much was said about who we were in this episode,” he said, also referring to former President Uhuru Kenyatta who faced similar accusations. “But doesn’t it strike you that ultimately we were elected by the same people we were accused of harming? “That tells you the whole narrative was false.”
A US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said Mr Ruto had been privately asked to indirectly confront what was described as his “hangover from the CPI” at the start of his visit. In his first speech Monday, at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, he pledged to keep Kenya “on the path to an open society, firmly committed to greater accountability and transparency, with a solid commitment from civil society”.
Mr Ruto also needs the journey to succeed. While he has made around 50 trips abroad since 2022, rallying support for his ideas, his popularity at home has plunged. Facing a crippling debt crisis – Kenya owes around $77 billion – Mr Ruto introduced tax hikes that drew cries of protest from his citizens.
Some Kenyans call him “Zakayo,” after the biblical tax collector Zacchaeus. The reference makes him smile. “I have been very frank with the Kenyan people that I cannot continue to borrow money,” he said, predicting that he would eventually convince his critics.
Yet time is running out and Mr Ruto’s big idea to turn around the economy is to ride the green energy wave. More than 90 percent of Kenya’s energy comes from renewable sources – mainly wind and geothermal sources – a natural advantage that Mr Ruto hopes to exploit to transform Kenya into an industrial powerhouse.
He wants foreign companies to set up shop in Kenya, where their products would be carbon neutral. It also portrays Kenya as a huge carbon sink, exploiting the burgeoning industry of sucking carbon from the atmosphere and then burying it deep in the rock formations of the Rift Valley.
“How can we move Africa from a continent of potential to a continent of opportunities and finally to a continent of investment? he said. Last month, Microsoft and two other companies announcement they were building a 1-gigawatt data center, powered by renewable energy, in Naivasha, 40 miles northwest of Nairobi.
Yet Mr Ruto’s embrace of Washington and democracy is not universally popular in Africa. Disillusionment with sham elections and corrupt elites has fueled youth support for recent military coups in countries like Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.
“We have the impression that democracy has not kept its promises, that the elites who came to power thanks to the elections have not kept their promises,” said Murithi Mutiga, Africa director at the International Crisis Group. Yet, he added, Kenya’s example of stability and steady growth proves that although democracy can be “messy, difficult, noisy and harsh,” it still works.
Mr Ruto is expected to spend much of Wednesday with members of Congress. On Thursday, he lays a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery before meetings with Mr. Biden and a state dinner at the White House. The pomp and prestige are a major reward for a president who is in his first term and who, critics say, has a strong authoritarian streak.
Last year, Mr. Ruto launched public attacks on judges whose rulings stood in the way of his policies, reigniting fears that he could potentially lead Kenya down an authoritarian path.
And like other African leaders, he is not afraid to play foreign costumes on the field.
Last year, to American dismay, Mr. Ruto hosted Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei V. Lavrov. In October, Mr Ruto traveled to Beijing for a three-day state visit to China.
Mr Ruto rejected the notion that he is the darling of the West or anyone else.
“It’s not about taking sides,” he said. “It’s a question of interests. There is absolutely no contradiction in working with different countries. “It’s just common sense.”
