Kenya’s senate impeaches deputy president over ‘corruption, undermining government’

The Kenyan Senate has voted to impeach Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua in a historic decision.

The upper house voted on Thursday to remove the 59-year-old on five out of a total of 11 charges against him, following two days of hearings. The Senate only needed to find him guilty of one charge to remove him from office.

Gachagua is the first deputy president to be removed in this manner since the introduction of impeachment in Kenya’s 2010 constitution. A similar motion was overwhelmingly passed by the lower house, the National Assembly, last week.

The 11 charges – which Gachagua has consistently denied – included corruption, insubordination, money laundering, undermining the government, practicing ethnically divisive politics, bullying public officers, and threatening a judge.

Peoplesmind