Ruto’s Fatal Mistake: The Impeachment of Rigathi Gachagua and Why It May Have Cost Him Everything
The Man Who Shot His Own Engine
President William Ruto won the 2022 general election with one of the most effective political partnerships Kenya had seen in years. Rigathi Gachagua was not just a deputy president. He was the engine behind the Mount Kenya mobilization — the region whose votes tipped the scales at Bomas of Kenya when IEBC announced the results. Two years later, that engine is gone. Not retired. Not sidelined. Removed. Impeached. And now, fighting back with a force that Ruto’s handlers clearly did not anticipate.
This is the story of what may turn out to be the single worst political decision of Ruto’s presidency — and possibly the decision that ends it.
How the Partnership Was Built
The Ruto-Gachagua alliance was not accidental. It was engineered. When Ruto was searching for a running mate in 2022, he needed someone who could deliver Central Kenya — a region that had historically been suspicious of him. Gachagua fit that role precisely. He had grassroots networks built over years of political work in Mathira. He had the trust of ordinary people in the region in a way that transferred directly to votes.
On the campaign trail, Gachagua was relentless in his work. He framed the election in terms that resonated with small traders and farmers. He linked the Ruto vote to the direct economic interests of people who had long felt excluded from power. He showed up at every rally, every church meeting, every baraza. The result was a Central Kenya performance for the Kenya Kwanza ticket that exceeded expectations. Ruto won. And Gachagua was central to that win.
The Tensions That Nobody Officially Acknowledged
The relationship began showing strain almost from the start of the administration. Gachagua was a man with his own political identity, his own following, and his own ideas about how government should be run. He made the “shareholding” statement — arguing that regions that had delivered votes should get proportionate government benefits — and the controversy that followed was severe. State House spent days trying to manage the fallout.
Behind the scenes, reports emerged of disagreements over cabinet appointments, over economic policy direction, and over just how much independence the deputy president was operating with. Gachagua did not behave like a man who understood his role as purely ceremonial or supportive. He behaved like a co-principal. That was a problem for a president who expected loyalty over partnership.
October 17, 2024: The Day That Changed Everything
The impeachment motion moved through Parliament at a pace that shocked the political establishment. Both the National Assembly and the Senate voted to remove Gachagua — the first time in Kenyan constitutional history that a sitting deputy president had been impeached. The charges included gross violation of the Constitution, insubordination, and financial misconduct. Gachagua’s team called it a political persecution. Much of the public called it something that smelled like an execution.
Kithure Kindiki was sworn in as the replacement deputy president before the legal battles were even concluded. The efficiency was impressive. The wisdom of the decision was not. Ruto had effectively told the country — and particularly Mount Kenya — that loyalty purchased through a hard-fought election campaign could be discarded when it became inconvenient. That message spread faster than any press release could contain it.
Gachagua Unleashed
What Ruto’s team perhaps did not fully reckon with was the kind of opponent an impeached former deputy president becomes. Gachagua came out fighting. He filed court cases challenging the legality of his removal. He held press conferences that drew national attention. He traveled back to Mount Kenya and held meetings with community leaders, religious figures, and local politicians. He aligned with opposition figures in a way that brought Central Kenya voices into the anti-Ruto coalition for the first time.
The crowds that showed up to hear him speak told a story that polling data confirmed. Gachagua had not lost his base. His base had, if anything, grown angrier. The impeachment had turned a political disagreement into a personal grievance that millions of people in the region felt on his behalf. Ruto had not just removed a deputy. He had created a cause.
The 80% and What It Actually Means
Political commentary in Kenya in late 2024 and into 2025 consistently puts public disapproval of Ruto at approximately 80%. That number, whether exact or approximate, reflects a real and documented collapse in presidential support. The Gen Z protests of mid-2024 had already signaled that urban youth — a demographic that had been somewhat open to Ruto’s economic messaging — had turned decisively against the administration. The Gachagua impeachment then peeled away a significant portion of Mount Kenya’s goodwill.
Add to this the economic reality that most Kenyans are living through: high food prices, expensive fuel, heavy taxation, and an economic program that has not delivered the tangible results people were promised. The “bottom-up economic model” that animated the 2022 campaign has not materialized in ways that ordinary Kenyans feel in their daily lives. Gachagua’s opposition is not the cause of Ruto’s unpopularity — but it has become its loudest amplifier.
Kenya’s constitution sets a high bar for presidential removal. Ruto is not facing a constitutional crisis that automatically ends his term. But governing with 80% of the population against you is its own kind of crisis. Every policy announcement faces a skeptical public. Every State House event looks defensive. Every interview is about damage control rather than achievement. The political capital needed to govern effectively has been largely depleted.
Ruto still controls Parliament. He still has the security apparatus. He still has international relationships and the kind of structural advantages that incumbency provides. These matter. A presidency does not end because of bad poll numbers alone. But a president who enters an election year with a shattered coalition, an energized and experienced opposition figure eating into his core base, and a public that has stopped believing in his project — that president is in extraordinary trouble.
The impeachment of Rigathi Gachagua may be remembered as the moment William Ruto crossed a line he could not uncross. The man he removed is still here. The votes he needed from the region Gachagua delivered are now in question. And the Kenya that heads toward 2027 is a very different Kenya than the one that elected Ruto in 2022. Only time will determine whether this was a setback or the beginning of the end. But right now, the math is brutal — and it is not on Ruto’s side.
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