Kenyan lawmakers on Wednesday continued their bid to oust Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.
This was after he was impeached by the lower house of parliament in an unprecedented political drama that has engulfed the nation.
The National Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday night to impeach Gachagua in a historic move that follows an acrimonious falling out with his boss President William Ruto.
“End of the road?” thundered the front-page headline of The Star newspaper on Wednesday, while The People Daily newspaper declared “The fall of a tribal chief.”
The vote has added to political uncertainty in the East African country which was rocked earlier this year by sometimes deadly anti-government protests amid a cost-of-living crisis.
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The impeachment motion accused the 59-year-old Gachagua of corruption, insubordination, undermining the government and practising ethnically divisive politics, among a host of other charges that he has all vociferously denied.
It was approved by 282 members of parliament in the 349-member National Assembly, more than the two-thirds required, after a sometimes heated 12-hour session.
Fast-tracking the next stage of the process, the upper house was in session on Wednesday to hear the charges against Gachagua.
If the Senate also approves the motion, Gachagua would become the first deputy president to be removed from office in this way since impeachment was introduced in Kenya’s revised 2010 constitution.
The Senate has 10 days to wrap up the proceedings and make a decision, which requires the support of at least two-thirds of senators.