Sky News – Pig Protest Against Kenyan MPs’ Wage Demands

By Sky News Team

Protesters have released dozens of piglets – and one huge pig – in front of Kenya’s parliament to show their fury at the MPs’ demands for higher salaries.

Some animals munched on parliamentary flower beds, while others licked blood that had been poured by the activists at the entrance of parliament in Nairobi.

John Wamagata, a 48-year-old protester carrying a severed pig head labelled “greed”, said: “We want to show them what they have become!”

Protesters, who had painted “MPigs” on many of the animals, shouted “thieves” at the legislators, some of whom were blocked from entering parliament.

A banner held up by one of the protesters said: “Don’t like the pay? Quit!”

Police fired tear gas and water cannons and swung their batons to disperse the protesters, and a dozen of them – including organiser Boniface Mwangi – were detained.

Many Kenyans see MPs as lazy and greedy in a country where hundreds of thousands live in slums.

The politicians say they need high salaries to give hand-outs to poor constituents for school fees and hospital bills, and also note that the cost of living in the capital is higher than in the rest of the country.

Kenyan legislators, elected in a March vote, want to reverse a government-commission ruling that shrank their salaries from the equivalent of roughly £82,000 to the equivalent of about £50,000.

The decision to reduce their pay came after a public outcry as the previous parliament attempted to raise their salaries to the equivalent of £115,000 annually and award themselves a huge bonus at the end of their terms.

This article first appeared on Sky News