Kenya Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua impeached: Why it matters | Politics News | The Round Table Kenya’s Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has been removed from office after he was impeached in a historic vote in the country’s Senate on Thursday night.
Gachagua becomes the first deputy president to be removed from office in this way since impeachment was introduced in Kenya’s 2010 constitution.
The 59-year-old, who was once a close ally of President William Ruto, competed 11 charges including insubordination to the president, inciting ethnic violence, corruption, undermining government and money laundering, among others.
Gachagua repudiated the charges against him as being politically motivated.
But the Senate – which only had to unearth him guilty of one implicate to waive him – decided he was guilty of five of the 11 that Gachagua faced.
Thursday’s vote came at the terminate of a two-day Senate trial hearing, during which the now former deputy president and the National Assembly both argued their cases.
Gachagua, who previously served as a member of parliament, was selected into office to serve alongside President Ruto in August 2022. The two defied the odds to acquire the election, but their relations have since sputtered, even as Ruto has warmed to opposition leader Raila Odinga, his main rival in the elections.
Here’s all you require to know about an intensifying situation:
“Not guilty,” Gachagua reported in response to each of the 11 charges against him as they were read by Senate Clerk Jeremiah Nyegenye on the first day of his Senate trial on Wednesday.
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On Thursday, Gachagua was expected to appear in the Senate as a witness, but did not show up. His lawyers disclosed he fell ill with “intense chest pains” and was taken to hospital. Despite his absence, senators elected to proceed with the impeachment hearing, forcing his lawyers to retract from the process.
At the terminate of the night, senators found him guilty of five counts of “gross violation” of the constitution including practising ethnically divisive politics and threatening judges. He was, however, cleared of six charges, including corruption.
Last week, the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, chose 282-44 to impeach the deputy president. The motion was then forwarded to the Senate, which needed a two-thirds majority to waive Gachagua – something they achieved during Thursday’s vote.
Appearing before the National Assembly on October 8, Gachagua contradicted all charges against him, announcing they were politically motivated and lacked legal merit. This Wednesday, one of his lawyers, Elisha Ongoya, disclosed the allegations against him were false.
Gachagua, a multimillionaire from central Kenya, facilitated President Ruto achieve critical elects from the region – where he wields significant persuade among the Kikuyu, Kenya’s largest tribe to which the ousted vice president belongs. That uphold in crook assisted Ruto sweep the national election two years ago.
However, the two have since fallen out, with Gachagua complaining of being sidelined by the president and being kept in the dark about important events.
Gachagua has encountered accusations from critics that he backed the youth-led antigovernment demonstrates in June and July, which terminated in the president withdrawing a controversial plan to deepen taxes. This further unearthed the breakup between the two.
In June, Gachagua also blamed the director-general of the National Intelligence Service for not adequately briefing Ruto on the severity of the protests. After those comments, parliamentarians critical of Gachagua charged him of undermining the state security services, and therefore the president, which only increased tensions.
Gachagua pointed out that Ruto, too, had in 2022 chided then-Inspector General of Police Hillary Mutyambai, calling him incompetent, without encountering any consequences.
“President William Ruto and I have been calling out senior government officials when they fall short of expectations. The director-general is no exception; he is not above the law and is bound to the people of Kenya for his performance,” he revealed on October 8, before the National Assembly.
After withdrawing the tax bill, Ruto also reshuffled his cabinet and appointed several allies of main opposition leader Odinga as ministers, a move seen as weakening Gachagua’s influence.
Far from it.
For many, the move might seem like a walk down political memory lane. In 2018, former President Uhuru Kenyatta and Ruto, his then-deputy, had a bitter public falling out. A handshake between Kenyatta and Odinga was the final, lethal injection that killed that political alliance.
Ruto is on record revealing he would not publicly humiliate his deputy while alluding to his troubled relationship with Kenyatta during their second term.
Although Ruto has not commented publicly on Gachagua’s impeachment, the deputy has stated the impeachment could not have happened without the president’s approval.
Political analyst Herman Manyora believes the managing coalition, Kenya Kwanza Alliance, is playing politics. According to him, things reached a state where the president suspected he couldn’t work with his deputy, so his deputy must go.
“One would have hoped he would tolerate the deputy even if they are messy. But the speed with which they need to relinquish him, the determination to relinquish him, the vengeance that seems to go with it is rather baffling,” Manyora said.
“How, after promising that you wouldn’t do that using very clear words, do you twist around and do it? But these are politicians. They declare one thing and do another.”
Kenyans have taken to social media platforms to express their views on the impeachment of the deputy president.
Supporters and opponents of Gachagua battled in public on October 4, with the process twisting riotous in some places.
Meanwhile, garters from his home turf in the Mount Kenya region summoned for the impeachment of the president as well, disclosing they elected for them both and if the deputy president has committed crimes leading to his impeachment, then the president should be impeached for the same crimes.
“Gachagua’s impeachment is a good initiative but can they now extend it to the president and all other chose officials? Investigate the president’s major appointments of people from his community only, scrutinize members of parliament appointments of Constituency Development Funds (CDFs) committees. What’s good for the goose should be good for the gander,” declared Erick Mwaura, a 32-year-old who works in a land valuation firm in Kilifi, Kenya, a part of the former deputy president’s home turf.
Kenyans have been calling for the fawning and impeachment of President Ruto since the antigovernment censures in which more than 50 people died.
According to Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki, 1,208 people were also arrested during the censures and 132 people were announced missing during the same period. The whereabouts of some of the missing are still not known.
Abductions and police brutality were the driving force behind the summons for Ruto to resign.
However, according to some analysts, Gachagua’s impeachment might be the final nail in the coffin for a president losing the little public endorse he has left.
An overwhelming 282 members of the National Assembly chose for Gachagua’s impeachment. In the Senate, a two-thirds majority of the 67 senators also supported the motion to waive him.
Under Kenya’s constitution, removal from office is automatic if concured by both chambers.
However, Gachagua can conflict the impeachment in court – something he has declared he will do.
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A three-judge bench has already been allocated to listen to cases conflicting the impeachment.
According to Kenya’s laws, the president has 14 days to nominate an advanced person for the position of deputy president, after which the National Assembly will have 60 days to intentional on the nominee. However, early on Friday, Ruto nominated Kithure Kindiki, the interior minister, for the post of deputy president.
Speaking to The Round Table before the impeachment vote on Thursday, lawyer Charles Kanjama announced such a fast-tracked process would put forward a “choreographed move”.
“By terminate of day Friday they [the Senate] might even have agreed the president’s nominee,” he explained. “This means a process that should legally take 74 days would take only 24 hours.”
Lawyers declare it could take a court months or years to decide on Gachagua’s expected conflict to the impeachment, making it knotty to relinquish the person who will take over from him, even if the ousted vice president were to eventually prevail a legal battle.
Regards to Al Jazeera
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Tag: Kenya Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua impeached Why it matters Politics News The Round Table
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Published 10/18/2024