Imenti Central MP Moses Kirima has denied claims that legislators from the Meru region voted to impeach Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua on the orders of President William Ruto.
Gachagua was impeached Tuesday last week by an overwhelming majority of the National Assembly after 281 MPs voted to send him home against 44 who opposed his ouster.
At least 40 Mt Kenya MPs were among those who voted in support of the proposed removal from office of the DP on the strength of 11 grounds cited in the motion sponsored by Kibwezi West MP Mwengi Mutuse.
Speaking to the press on Monday, Kirima said he was among the lot that endorsed Gachagua’s ouster, but this was purely on their individual conscience and not on the President’s directive.
“I want to insist, and that one should be repeated; there’s no time when William Ruto called us and told us to impeach Gachagua. It was the charges which were read in Parliament,” he said.
“But I have seen it that you people [the media] are trying to coin it and make it that it’s William Ruto who told us, he did not,” he added.
Kirima claimed that MPs from the Meru region supported the proposed Gachagua ouster on the strong belief that Interior CS Kithure Kindiki would take his place.
Kindiki and Gachagua were frontrunners in the running mate race in May 2022, but despite Kindiki emerging top after two rounds of voting, Ruto settled on Gachagua, then a first term Mathira MP.
Kirima said it was the general assumption of the Ameru MPs that with Gachagua out of the way, it would automatically pass that Kindiki would ascend to the second-in-command position.
“We believed as Meru MPs that No. 2 is supposed to take that place of No. 1 so we signed [the impeachment motion] on the strength that Kindiki is going to be appointed as DP. If it was not Kindiki, I would not have voted out Gachagua,” he said.
The MP, however, expressed concern that things appear to be changing rapidly and insinuated that the initial plan may not come to pass.
“But from the time we passed that impeachment, things are not as they were,” Kirima said.
Gachagua has been given 10 hours within which to make his case and defend himself against all the 11 grounds leveled against him by his accuser when the Senate holds a two-day hearing session on Thursday and Friday.
The Senate has also granted the sponsor of the impeachment motion, Kibwezi West MP Mwengi Mutuse, and the National Assembly an equal amount of time.
Mutuse wants Gachagua removed from office on a number of grounds, including insurbodination to the President, undemining the President and devolution, threatening a judge and Kemsa acting CEO, advancing ethinicity, and irregular acquisition of wealth amounting to Sh5.2 billion within just two years.
The DP has denied all the allegations.
But amid the impending battle of legal minds on the floor of the House, a glimmer of hope shone its rays on the DP when Chief Justice Martha Koome on Monday constituted a three-judge bench to determine cases challenging his impeachment.
Empanelling of the bench consisting of Justices Eric Ogola, Anthony Mrima, and Freda Mugambi followed a ruling by Justice Lawrence Mugambi that he was satisfied that the petition filed by Gachagua and five other separate petitioners raised weighty constitutional issues that required the mind of more than one Judge.
"With the cases being the first of its kind in Kenya where the DP is being removed by the process of impeachment, it's my considered opinion that they deserve the input of the bench," Justice Mugambi said.
Meanwhile, the High Court will on Tuesday at 2.30 pm rule on whether or not the Gachagua impeachment trial at the Senate should be suspended.
The decision by Justice Chacha Mwita followed submissions by Gachagua’s counsel, led by Senior Counsel Paul Muite and Tom Macharia, that the public participation process leading to the DP’s impeachment was a 'sham'.
"The assembly had no right to limit themselves to only 12 days, which resulted in inadequate public participation in such a weighty matter," Muite told court.
It’s on the premise of these new developments that MP Kirima feels their synergy as Meru MPs to see Gachagua out of the way for Kindiki to ascend to the second-most powerful office was now standing on shaky ground and may come a cropper.
He added that lobbying by some communities to have one of their own succeed Gachagua should he be impeached has further complicated issues for Kindiki.
“So if they bring all those things, things are not as straight forward as they were, so I’m so much concerned that there are those other players who have come in the scene,” Kirima said.
A survey released last week by Infotrak Research indicated that Kindiki was the most preferred DP pick to replace Gachagua should he be impeached.
The survey said at least 20 per cent of Kenyans held this view.