Kenya’s Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua was ousted from office yesterday, Thursday after being impeached in an unprecedented political saga that has gripped the nation.
In a historic move, the Senate voted to impeach Gachagua on five of 11 charges, after a similar motion was overwhelmingly approved by the lower house National Assembly last week after two days of hearing.
Gachagua was found guilty on charges of “gross violation” of the constitution, including threatening judges and practicing ethnically divisive politics but cleared of others including corruption and money-laundering. Allegations which he has describes as “nonsensical” and “outrageous” and claimed he was being treated like a “spent cartridge”.
The grounds on which Gachagua was impeached include:
- Ground One of shareholding,
- Ground Four of undermining the Independence of Judges,
- Ground Five of the National Cohesion and Integrity Act 4,
- Ground Six of crimes under the National Cohesion Act and
- Ground Nine of gross misconduct (Public Attacks to NIS).
Kenyan senators voted to remove Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua from office, despite his absence from his impeachment trial due to hospitalization, according to his lawyer. Gachagua was expected to testify in the Senate but had pleaded not guilty to 11 charges the previous day. While his fate was being determined in parliament, Gachagua underwent tests in a hospital in the Nairobi suburb of Karen. Karen Hospital’s chief cardiologist Dan Gikonyo told reporters” He came in with a lot of chest pain,”, adding that Gachagua was in a stable condition but would remain in hospital for at least 48-72 hours.
It should be of note that One MP abstained from voting.
The vote saw the embattled 59-year-old Deputy President Gachagua affectionately called “Riggy G” fail to testify in his defense after being admitted to hospital with severe chest pains.
Gachagua is the first deputy president to be sacked in this manner since impeachment was introduced in Kenya’s revised 2010 constitution.
His downfall is the culmination of a bitter falling out with President William Ruto, who he helped win a 2022 election by rallying support from the vote-rich Mount Kenya region.
“The Senate has resolved to remove from office, by impeachment, his excellency Rigathi Gachagua, the deputy president of the Republic of Kenya,” Senate speaker Amason Kingi said after the vote.
“Accordingly, His Excellency Rigathi Gachagua ceases to hold office.”
The Senate’s decision not to postpone its hearing after Gachagua fell ill prompted his lawyers to walk out in protest. They argued that he had a constitutional right to testify in his defence.
It is important, to note however that no criminal proceedings have been launched against him hence, Gachagua could fight his impeachment in the courts now the parliamentary process is completed.
The 349-member National Assembly had voted by an overwhelming 282 votes on October 8 to impeach him, more than the two-thirds required.
Unlike the process in the lower house, where MPs delivered their verdict on the entire motion, senators needed to back just one charge, by at least two-thirds of the votes, for the impeachment to succeed.
The Senate trial went ahead after Gachagua failed in multiple court challenges to halt the process, the last one just hours before the Senate trial began on Wednesday.
Kenya’s President William Ruto has not made any public comment on the impeachment, but Gachagua has said the process could not have gone ahead without his boss’s blessing. In his (Gachagua) words “This is what we call political deceit, conmanship and betrayal,” Gachagua had said of the process, insisting that it violated the will of Kenyans who voted for the Ruto-Gachagua ticket in the 2022 election.
The motion of impeachment was tabled by Kibwezi West MP Mwengi Mutuse in the National Assembly last week who preferred 11 charges upon which the Deputy President should be impeached.
The accusations include gross violation of the constitution, undermining the President, undermining devolution, irregular acquisition of wealth, publicly attacking a judge, intimidating acting Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA) CEO, promoting ethnicity, and insubordination to the President among other charges.
Before the Senate voted to uphold the impeachment, his lawyers walked out in protest after senators voted against extending the process to Saturday.
This was after the embattled Deputy President failed to show up at the plenary in the afternoon and afterwards his lead lawyer Paul Mwite said he had fallen ill and was admitted at Karen Hospital.
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