Government blunders have made Gachagua 'people's deputy president'

Few Kenyan politicians are as lucky as Rigathi Gachagua who is riding high on the populist wave despite having suffered the ignominy of impeachment and conviction that removed him from the deputy presidency. The removal showed President William Ruto’s ingenuity in achieving his desires despite the safeguards that constitutional drafters had sought to bestow on the Office of Deputy President against President Daniel arap Moi’s habit of dismissing and appointing vice presidents as he wished. Having opposed the 2010 Constitution during the referendum, Dr Ruto appears uncomfortable with its spirit. Getting rid of his deputy, who repeatedly made the political mistake of uttering that he had been elected to the office rather than appointed, seemed to have become an obsession. He, so declared Uasin Gishu MP Gladys Boss Shollei, ordered his team to remove Gachagua, and they did. Ruto then appointed Kithure Kindiki as DP. It then appeared as if Gachagua had reached his political end but he had not.

The surprise is not that Gachagua was dismissed and Prof Kindiki appointed, it was that he refused to stay down and seemed to gain unexpected popularity. He had tried to gain acceptance as leader of the Mountain because he was the DP and had a few backers like Nyeri Governor Kahiga Mutahi pushing the argument, but his inappropriate utterances showed him to be too immature to lead. Since impeachment and conviction by a compromised Parliament was visibly unfair, it earned him public sympathy. He exploited that sympathy so well that he became an endless headache to the Ruto-Raila broad-based government.