By Hereward Holland and Ammu Kannampilly
NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenya’s Senate will proceed with impeachment hearings and a vote on whether to dismiss Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua on Thursday, the senate speaker said, despite Gachagua’s absence from the proceedings after his lawyer said he had fallen ill.
The National Assembly voted last week to impeach Gachagua, who helped President William Ruto win an election two years ago but has been assailed by allies of the president over alleged disloyalty and a series of provocative public comments.
Gachagua, who has denied the allegations, was due to defend himself against 11 impeachment charges in the Senate on Thursday afternoon, before senators vote on whether to remove him from office.
But after Gachagua failed to appear, his lawyer Paul Muite said the deputy president had been hospitalised with intense chest pains, urging the Senate to pause proceedings for a couple of days.
“The sad reality is that the deputy president of the republic of Kenya has been taken sick, very sick,” Muite said.
Speaker Amason Kingi put forward a motion to adjourn the hearing until Saturday but senators voted against the move.
“The nays have it,” Kingi said, as Gachagua’s legal team left the chambers in protest.
Ruto, who has fallen out with Gachagua in recent months, has not commented on proceedings, but could face a public backlash if his deputy is ousted, political analysts said.
Many Kenyans view the impeachment process as politically motivated, and a distraction from the aftermath of the deadly anti-tax protests in June and July that exposed deep discontent with government policies and alleged corruption.
The hearings, which have involved in-depth scrutiny of Gachagua’s finances, could boomerang back at Ruto, said Karuti Kanyinga, a professor at the University of Nairobi’s Institute for Development Studies.
“We are going to hear people demanding that the same thing that has been done on Gachagua be done to the president,” Kanyinga said.
Gachagua has previously called the impeachment process a political lynching based on falsehoods.
If two-thirds of senators back the motion in a vote scheduled for Thursday evening, Gachagua will become the first Kenyan president or deputy president forced from office by impeachment, a process introduced under the 2010 constitution.
Gachagua had been due to respond to a litany of accusations laid out on Wednesday by a lawmaker from Ruto’s coalition.
The lawmaker, Mwengi Mutuse, said Gachagua had incited hatred in comments about ethnic minorities from his home region.
Mutuse also accused Gachagua of acquiring properties worth over $40 million since becoming deputy president, despite reporting a net worth before entering office of only around $6 million.
Elisha Ongoya, a member of Gachagua’s legal team, said the allegations lacked evidence and were based on speculation.
(Reporting by Hereward Holland, Hereward Holland Ammu Kannampilly, George Obulutsa and Sonia Rao; Editing by Christina Fincher, Ammu Kannampilly, Bernadette Baum and Bill Berkrot)
