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Kenyan President William Ruto has nominated Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki to the post of Deputy President as Kenya’s former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua was ousted from office on Friday 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.
The vote capped a day of high drama which saw the embattled 59-year-old known as “Riggy G” fail to testify in his defence after being admitted to hospital with severe chest pains.
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Hours after his impeachment, Kenyan President William Ruto nominated Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki to the post of deputy president, the parliament speaker said on Friday.
“I have received a message from … the president, regarding the nomination of Professor Kithure Kindiki to fill the vacancy which has occurred in the office,” Speaker Moses Wetang’ula said in parliament.
Kenya’s parliament then voted to approve the appointment.
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.”
Gachagua was found guilty on charges of “gross violation” of the constitution, including threatening judges and practising ethnically divisive politics, but cleared of others including corruption and money-laundering.
Gachagua had denied all allegations against him as “nonsensical” and “outrageous” and claimed he was being treated like a “spent cartridge”.
The process has created a mood of political uncertainty in a country regarded as a stable democracy in the volatile East Africa region.
While his fate was being determined in parliament, Gachagua underwent tests in hospital in the Nairobi suburb of Karen.
“He came in with a lot of chest pain,” Karen Hospital’s chief cardiologist Dan Gikonyo told reporters, adding that Gachagua was in a stable condition but would remain in hospital for at least 48-72 hours.
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.
No criminal proceedings have been launched against him, and 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.
