Kenya lawmakers vote to impeach deputy president

Kenyan lawmakers on Tuesday voted to impeach Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua for abuse of office.

The impeachment motion accused the 59-year-old deputy to President William Ruto of corruption, insubordination, undermining the government and practising ethnically divisive politics, among a host of other charges.

In a historic move, the motion was approved by 281 MPs in the 349-member National Assembly, more than the two-thirds required.

There were 44 votes against and one abstention, according to parliament speaker Moses Wetangula.

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The motion will now proceed to the upper-house Senate and if approved there, Gachagua would become the first deputy president to be removed from office in this way since impeachment was introduced in Kenya’s revised 2010 constitution.

Armed with a 500-page dossier, Gachagua had taken to the floor of the lower house during a sometimes heated 12-hour parliamentary session to reject the charges against him strenuously.

At a press conference on Monday, he had branded the motion as “outrageous” and “sheer propaganda”, calling it a plot to hound him out of office.

Gachagua, a powerful businessman from Kenya’s biggest tribe, the Kikuyu, weathered previous corruption scandals to become deputy leader as Ruto’s running mate in a closely fought election in August 2022.