CHARLES MUNYUI: Why impeaching Ruto was harder than Gachagua

By CHARLES MUNYUI

There are two things.

One, President William Ruto had his party and, by extension, had a piece of both Houses.

He had MPs from both Houses loyal to him and would not have participated in an exercise of this nature. Ruto also kept a close relationship with them.

I don’t remember them differing that much with him.

He never lost any of them to open a possibility of him being removed.

Second, when he came back for the second term he never lost touch with the members.

Much as he used to go out to relate with the general public, he never sacrificed the relationship he had with MPs.

Contrastingly, Gachagua came to power without a political party.

He had not campaigned in the regions. He was accompanied by Ruto, so the loyalty was directly to Ruto.

These MPs owed their allegiance to Ruto from day one to the extent that when Gachagua was named as running mate, Ruto had already campaigned in Central.

He picked a running mate when the time was due but it was not clear from the outset.

When he offered Gachagua and Interior CS Kithure Kindiki for MPs to pick, the majority backed Kindiki.

This means there has never been love lost between the DP and MPs. Even when the dispute arose, he did not bridge the gap.

He never put much effort to create a relationship with them. He, instead, went to the people directly. In so doing, the MPs felt they were being de-campaigned.

The strained relationship has existed for a while. It’s just that it has escalated to a point now they thought this relationship could not be repaired.

That is how he was impeached by members of the National Assembly. Under normal circumstances, you’d expect MPs from your region not to support such a motion.

These ones participated in having him removed yet one of the counts was that Gachagua was working for “Murima”.

It is an issue with the relationships and his inability to mend fences. Governance consultant spoke to Star