President William Ruto and former deputy president Rigathi Gachagua.
Political pundits argue that the easy manner in which Mr Rigathi Gachagua was ousted by President William Ruto makes a pre-election alliance based on the promise of the deputy presidency suspect, hence future running mates will adopt bankable strategies.
As a constitutional position that requires a presidential candidate to nominate a running mate to run on a joint ticket, it will remain an alliance-building factor, but deputy presidential candidates will henceforth seek their own insurance.
This insurance would include funding their own political parties to ensure that they too have MPs they can rely on when push comes to shove, a situation that many believe will further entrench regionalism.
Lawyer Geoffrey Kahuthu agrees that President Ruto's regime has stoked fear around the contest ticket and will affect how future alliances are formed.
"The problem is that we require a referendum to reverse the mode of appointed vice presidents instead of the elected one that our current constitution prescribes. President Ruto has shown that he cannot work with an elected one and that makes impeachments to be a real fear in our democracy," he said.
Veteran lawyer John Khaminwa on Monday told Nation.Africa that "without disciplined politicians who can rule by making the constitution work, but instead apply whimsical governance that seeks to cut those around into size, the fear of impeachment has now set in".
To avoid the risk of what happened to Gachagua, efforts to have solid political parties that are founded on ideals will continue to be a mirage, experts say.
"This because all those with ambitions to be presidential running mates are also people with progressive ambitions and won't wish to find themselves cut off in the fashion Gachagua was," says Paul Mwangi, an ODM affiliated lawyer.
He said that "it will be difficult, if not impossible, for any serious politician to walk into an alliance to be promised the running mate slot without riding inside his own political party".
This means that the charge of tribalism and regionalism that President Ruto's allies used against Gachagua as one of the grounds for impeachment may actually become more entrenched in the political space as 'home-grown' political parties emerge.
Lawyer Mr PLO Lumumba argues that "we might move from the archaic to mediocre as all abandon the desired march towards political civilisation into tribally founded political cocoons".
He adds that, "the trend of political deceit, betrayal, fury of control and viciousness of punishment might make this country a playing field of every village seeking to own a political party to enter into duels en-route to government".
Kibwezi West MP Mwengi Mutuse, in his grounds for seeking Mr Gachagua's impeachment, accused him of pursuing tribal inclinations where he went around selling himself as a mountain warrior instead of a national leader.
But even those from the Mt Kenya region who ganged up against Mr Gachagua to throw him under the bus now argue that had he belonged to a political party of his own, it would have been harder to chop off his political neck.
"He had zero chance of surviving since he did not have a political party to use...no members of his political party that he could whip to protect him," says Mathioya MP Mr Edwin Mugo.
Gatundu North MP Mr Elijah Kinyanjui said "the numbers to remove Mr Gachagua came shipped through political party leadership and where those in United Democratic Alliance (UDA) where he was Deputy Party leader ganged up against him since he was not the one calling the shots".
The same Mt Kenya members who voted for Mr Gachagua's removal stayed in the UDA and went on to support the elevation of non-party CS Kithure Kindiki to fill the deputy leadership slot and automatically become deputy leader.
"This is the irony of our times...my colleagues in Mt Kenya are saying Gachagua was deposed for not having a political party of his own, yet they go ahead and support another vulnerable Mt Kenyan [who also does not have his own party] to succeed Gachagua," said Maragua MP Mary wa Maua.
The situation, says political scientist Mr Emmanuel Wangwe, will run the country into entrenched tribalism and regionalism in a magnitude "that is bigger than what Gachagua's ouster seeks to address".
He said just like political scientist Harold Lasswell defined politics to be "who gets what, when, and how", all presidential candidates will never attract a strong, independent and negotiating conscious running mate".
Mr Wangwe said the future, as informed by Gachagua's woes, will be about a presidential candidate making a tribal deal with a region to recommend two running mates.
"Let us first agree that unless we restructure our politics, a presidential candidate must come with own tribal numbers that if combined with those from other tribes will post a win. The interesting part is that running mates will fear facing the problems Gachagua is currently undergoing," he said.
Mr Wangwe added that the most logical deal will be for the presidential candidate and his running mate to belong to different political parties.
"It will be difficult to convince a running mate from another tribe different from that of the presidential candidate to enter into a contest without a political party," he said.
The flip side of it will be if the running mate's political party does not win enough votes to thwart an impeachment call, Mr Wangwe says.
Similarly, if the deputy president's party wins more seats than the president's, the country will be treated to a charade of the commander-in-chief being removed at supersonic speed.
He says both the presidential candidate and his running mate will have to work very hard to get the numbers to defeat the two-thirds threshold required for impeachment in both the National Assembly and the Senate.
Mr Wangwe says that the fear may trickle down to the counties where running mates may also demand to be allowed to run on their own political parties as a safeguard against impeachment, prompting gubernatorial candidates to also seek their own parties and win controlling numbers.
Kangema MP Peter Kihungi said President Ruto will face this dilemma in his bid for a second term in 2027 as no region will agree to contest as his running mate without running in a secured political arrangement.
This is despite the fact that President Ruto is busy mobilising Kenya Kwanza Alliance member parties to dissolve and form a single party for 2027.
"It is only a hopeless political fool with zero ambitions who will agree to be a running mate with the bold statement that Gachagua impeachment has declared upon future contest pacts. The emphatic message that is reigning supreme now is that a regional party is smart living," said Mr Kihungi.
National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichung'wa told Nation.Africa that "we are pursuing a national script that will civilise our democracy and the axe is not limited to the DP only but all those who hold positions of power".
"The removal of the Deputy President is a big statement about what President Ruto stands for regarding national unity and cohesion," he added.
Political scientist Gasper Odhiambo said the common denominator in the presidential ticket was tribalism, based on how to gang up as big tribes with their own parties to gain advantage.
"No running mate who has ambitions will agree to walk into an alliance to represent the interests of his or her support base to risk being cut off like Gachagua. Except for stooges, real politicians will refuse," he said.
Kirinyaga Woman Representative Njeri Maina, who did not support the tabling of the impeachment motion, said so far tribal sentiments have increased since Mr Gachagua was impeached.
She expects Gachagua's impeachment to further inflame passions for tribal and regional parties ahead of 2027.
Nakuru Senator Ms Tabitha Karanja on Sunday told Nation.Africa that "the only hope we now have to stabilise our politics is to do away with pre-election running mates for both presidential and gubernatorial positions and instead have presidents and governors picking their deputies after elections have been won".
"It is well that our constitution sought to make deputies more centred and accountable to people, but incompatibility and ambitions have made the well-meaning constitution a charade," she said.
University don Prof Macharia Munene says the biggest dilemma for President Ruto will be in the Mt Kenya region.
"Let us not lie to ourselves that this impeachment debate is popular in Mt Kenya. It is not and the president's rating cannot be anywhere near the 87 percent he garnered in the 2022 General Election," he said.
Prof Munene said the president's big dilemma, if he wants to unite the country without isolating others, will be to win back the support of Mt Kenya region and convince its voters to trust him again without a political party of their own.
National Democratic Congress youth leader Gladys Njoroge told Nation.Africa on Sunday that "we as the Gen Z fraternity also want to be considered as possible running mates...but we have been made aware of the need to have our own political parties".
She said older generations believe they have a right to senior leadership positions, which reinforces the divisions that are likely to arise instead of the intended cohesion.
She said that beyond tribe, region, political party and gender, even age should be included in the characteristics of ideal electoral alliances.
"Even us in the youth bracket also discreetly adhere to politics of tribe and region since in coming up with a constitutional understanding of terms like regional balance and face of Kenya we must ask ourselves where we come from," Ms Njoroge said.
Political scientist Barack Muluka told Nation.Africa that "one of the things that has exposed Gachagua to the vagaries of impeachment is the lack of a political party to host his Mountain votes that he helped Ruto get to win—a strong point on how not to approach an election".
