Gachagua ouster raises important legal questions

At the same time, there are a lot more Gachagua’s left in public life. None other than President William Ruto himself dabbles in the same approaches to political ethnicity and views public office in transactional terms.

This is why Kenyans must ask: what will change after we get rid of Gachagua?

Will this simply be a rejection of a man who proved to be difficult to work within a government that continues to fail at everything it touches while presiding over obscene levels of corruption?

Or will there be some introspection and turning of a new leaf in how public officials approach their sacred duty to Kenyans? 

The other set of questions out there revolve around the position of Deputy President. The framers of the Constitution gave the position of security of tenure as a check against the imperial presidency.

By orchestrating the impeachment of Gachagua, President Ruto is attacking an important check on his power.

It is as simple as that. It should trouble us that Gachagua’s impeachment process is moving swiftly through Parliament without a thought about the implications for checks and balances both within the presidency and about executive-legislative relations. 

We do not want to develop a culture of docile Deputy Presidents like we had for decades under dictatorship. That position ought to be filled with thinking people who are politically powerful enough to stand up to the president. 

The writer is a professor at Georgetown University