President William Ruto’s resumption of the constant foreign junkets temporarily forced to a halt by the Gen Z uprising against high taxation, the cost of living burden and government profligacy, serves as a powerful indicator that it is back to business as usual.
If extended forays abroad somewhat divert the President’s attention from headaches at home, he returns from the United Nations General Assembly in New York to find that the issues which may be giving him sleepless nights have not gone away.
Top on Ruto’s agenda will obviously be the sustained push to get rid of estranged Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua through an impeachment motion expected to be filed in the National Assembly. The President has himself not commented on the impeachment push, but it goes without saying that his troops in Parliament led by National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichungw’ah and Senate Majority Leader Aaron Cheruiyot would not proceed on a direct move against the DP without his express approval.
While it does seem clear that the President’s allies have the numbers to mount successful impeachment commencing at the National Assembly and moving on to the Senate, there is still a great deal of uncertainty on the likely political reverberations. Impeachment would spell the death knell for Gachagua’s relatively young — just one term as Mathira MP before ascending to the DPs mansion — political career, but he is not one to go down without a fight.
It would be a messy and dirty battle which would cover not only him in mud, but also his detractors. A likely counter-strategy for Gachagua would be to mount a defence claiming that he is being victimised for opposing grand corruption in the Ruto government. Revelations of questionable deals worth hundreds of billions of shillings on the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport development and concession deal with the controversial Indian mogul Gautam Adani; expansion of the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company network and rollout of the Social Health Insurance Fund/Social Health Authority scheme already puts Ruto squarely in the spotlight over the emergence of crony capitalism rooted right at the centre of State House.
There are whispers that if push comes to shove, Gachagua’s allies will mount their own impeachment push against Ruto, citing unbridled corruption, as well as extra-judicial executions, abductions, torture, enforced disappearances and other actions by the police during the crackdown on the Gen Z protests.
An impeachment push against Ruto would be a challenge as Gachagua clearly does not have the numbers. Having been abandoned by most of his Mt Kenya troops in Parliament and not having cultivated loyalties outside his ethnic base, the DPs allies would be unlikely to garner even a dozen of the 117 supporters required for the Motion to be accepted. That National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula and Senate Speaker Amason Kingi both act as agents of the Executive rather than as heads of an equal arm of government and therefore would not admit any move against Ruto, would not even come into play.
But the gamble is premised on the hope that Ruto would not dare mount sanction an impeachment move against his DP that while likely to easily sail through, would amount to a Pyrrhic victory. There is a risk of his own name being dragged into the mud, and providing fodder for continuing negative publicity around opaque deals where the finger would be pointed squarely in his direction.
This is a high-stakes game where it appears no quarter will be given by either side. Ichung’wah, in various interviews, has come out with a litany of accusations against Gachagua, which could form the grounds for impeachment, even though last week he was denying knowledge of any such move. Deputy Majority Leader Owen Baya and Kimilili MP Didmus Barasa claim more than 240 signatures have been collected from MPs in support of an impeachment Motion, even though many of the names and signatures displayed to have been written by the same hand. Ruto confidants such as Deputy Speaker Gladys Boss Sholei, Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi and others have been active at public gatherings and social media over the past week declaring that impeachment is inevitable.
Grounds cited, though no specific details have been or proof offered, include violation of the Constitution and the laws, misuse of public funds, insubordination, causing divisions, and promoting tribalism. However, the clincher could be in a move apparently designed to intimidate Gachagua by putting on display the full coercive power of the State machinery, thereby forcing him into resigning before the matter gets to a hearing in Parliament.
Conspiracy to commit a felony
This was illustrated on September 24, when the Director of Criminal Investigations Mohammed Amin wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions Renson Ingonga, recommending prosecution of five key Gachagua allies and aides for alleged planning and financing of the Gen Z protests. Just two days later, Ingonga wrote back, okaying the prosecution of two Nairobi MPs, Benjamin Gathiru Mwangi, alias Meja Donk (Embakasi Central) and James Mwangi Gakuya (Embakasi North), former legislators and now political aides George Theuri and Ngunjiri Wambugu, and a personal assistant, Pius Munene, for alleged conspiracy to commit a felony.
It was a curious request from the DCI and an equally curious assent from the DPP as the letter disclosed no specific evidence, save for an ‘intelligence report’ on a meeting held at the Boulevard Hotel in Nairobi. If the matter does go to court, it will be interesting to see how it proceeds because an intelligence report cannot be admitted as evidence unless the National Intelligence Service officer who authored it is paraded on the stand to be led in examination and also be subject to cross-examination.
Gachagua hit back immediately, pointing the finger of blame at Ruto: “President William Ruto and I, on assuming office, gave an undertaking to the people of Kenya that never again shall the criminal justice system be called upon to help in the management of politics. I am embarrassed that we are back to where we were. Harassment of my office staff and Members of Parliament perceived to be close to me, has been going on for the last two months,” he charged.
His statement was an echo of the statement he released in June at the height of the anti-government protests when he accused DCI boss Amin and NIS director Noordin Haji of misusing their powerful security units to try and pin the Gen Z uprising on him. The duo have also pursued leads trying to connect former President Uhuru Kenyatta , his younger brother Muhoho and political aide Alfred Getonga to the Gen Z protests, using malleable journalists in the mainstream media to float their identities in print even in the absence of any clear evidence.
Gachagua’s response to the possible indictments of his allies and aides was a clear indication that he blames it on his political fallout with Ruto, rather than any specific crimes. It might not be a coincidence that on the same day, Ingonga was giving consent to prosecute, Interior Cabinet Secretary Kindiki Kithure was telling Parliament that the Gen Z protests were an insurrection aimed at overthrowing President Ruto’s government.
Kindiki told a parliamentary committee querying reported police abductions and extra-judicial killings that force was necessary to put down what he described as a coup plot, adding, without giving details, that prosecution was imminent for ‘high profile’ individuals allegedly responsible for the chaos and destruction.
It appears for the moment that ‘high profile’ does not include the likes of Gachagua and Uhuru, but it has been reported from previous leaks from investigators that arrests at that level were actually mooted. In describing the Gen Z protests as an attempted coup rather than a genuine youth response to unpopular policies, Kindiki was reflecting the emerging narrative spun spin Ruto regained the political initiative.
Incidentally, Kindiki stands to be a key beneficiary if, or when, Gachagua is removed from office, having been tapped by Mt Kenya MPs in the governing Kenya Kwanza alliance as their new kingpin ahead of the DP. From the early days of the protests, Ruto had acknowledged the youth grievances and moved to calm the storm by withdrawing the contentious Finance Bill and dissolving the cabinet.
He then pulled a political master stroke by incorporating allies of opposition leader Raila Odinga in the reconstituted Cabinet. With the Gen Z neutralised by that move, Ruto won himself the leeway to go back on many of the concessions he had made. He also ramped up efforts to depict the Gen Z protests as an insurrection sponsored by his political foes, moving the finger of blame initially pointed at both the US and Russia to his local detractors, where it firmly settled on Gachagua.
The downside has been that the more Gachagua is out under pressure, the more he wins on his initially elusive quest to inherit the mantle of Mt Kenya leadership vacated by Uhuru. The region voted solidly for Ruto in 2022, but now even his key Mt Kenya pointmen such as former Trade CS Moses Kuria concede that Gachagua is running away with the hearts and minds.
Knowing that he will not be Ruto’s running mate in 2027, Gachagua is already plotting his own presidential campaign, but may also strike a deal to throw his weight behind Wiper Party leader Kalonzo Musyoka .
Either move might deny Ruto the single biggest voting bloc behind his 2022 victory, but the numbers crunchers show that it could be countered by the new alignments bringing Raila’s troops into the Kenya Kwanza basket.
In the meantime, Ruto continues to push the narratives aimed at denying legitimacy to the Gen Z protests, telling media interviews during his foreign junkets that the youth were incited by disinformation and fake news rather than any tangible grounds.
