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Kenya’s embattled Deputy President, Rigathi Gachagua, calls himself the “truthful man”, attributing his remarkable rise to the fact that he speaks truth to power.
But as he faces impeachment proceedings, he says these troubles are also a result of his outspoken nature.
Before he was elected MP in 2017, little was known about the man who would, in five short years, rise to become Kenya’s second-in-command.
Not many people outside Gachagua’s central Kenya constituency had heard of him or his style of politics.
Gachagua captured the limelight in the run-up to the 2022 elections, when he vehemently opposed President Uhuru Kenyatta’s choice of preferred successor.
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Kenyatta was campaigning heavily for former Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
But Gachagua allied himself with William Ruto, Kenyatta’s then deputy, who was angling for the presidency that his boss did not want to bequeath to him.
At political rallies and in media circles, Gachagua railed against Kenyatta, often in words that other politicians would find cringeworthy.
To this day, no one has been found guilty of Kariuki’s death.
Before he became Kenya’s deputy president, police raided Gachagua’s home and arrested him in relation to a corruption and money-laundering case. The charges were dropped after he and Ruto took power following the 2022 election.
He had helped Ruto win by marshalling support in Mount Kenya – the biggest voting bloc in the country. Both Gachagua and Kenyatta come from there. Kenyatta had tried to rally Mount Kenya’s voters to throw their weight behind Odinga, but he failed.
Long before Kenyatta became president in 2013, Gachagua had worked closely with him, including as his personal assistant for five years.
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But after teaming up with Ruto, Gachagua went from being Kenyatta’s “confidant” to one of his harshest critics.
However, since falling out with his current boss, Gachagua has apologised to Kenyatta, saying it was “foolish” of him to have “fought my own brother”.
This humility is in sharp contrast to his rhetoric as Ruto’s running-mate – analyst Javas Bigamo had even described Gachagua as a “feared political bulldog that Ruto needed to be able to counter President Kenyatta in the central region”.
Gachagua was praised as an excellent mobiliser, who had the ear of ordinary people on the ground.
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Yet he was probably not the person many expected to take the deputy position, given that Gachagua had only being a politician for five years and was up against more seasoned candidates.
Ruto explained he had chosen Gachagua because “he is one of those leaders who are passionate about ordinary people”.
Politics expert Bobby Mkangi previously told the BBC that Gachagua’s ability to negotiate his way to the top “considering other names that were fronted and were known nationally” was “quite something”.
But just two years after ascending to power, that ability seems to have fizzled out – leaving Gachagua butting heads with the president and in a position where many legislators are pushing for his removal.
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He stands accused of corruption, money-laundering, gross misconduct, insubordination and bullying public officers and six other acts of wrongdoing.
As the motion was being tabled in parliament on Tuesday, the MP introducing the motion, Mwengi Mutuse, said that 291 out of 349 MPs had signed the document pushing for Gachagua’s removal.
The signatures of two-thirds – or 233 – of all MPs are required to impeach him.
Mkangi now says the deputy president has been “unable to consolidate the support of his base and the politicians around him”.
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Gachagua has always been accused of being brash and aggressive – it was one of the reasons some argued against his selection to the running mate position prior to the 2022 election. But in recent months, this criticism has increased.
He denies this assessment of his character, along with assertions that he alienates his fellow politicians.
He says all he does is “speak the truth”, which he insists has made him unpopular within certain political factions.
“I will not compromise my principles,” he said over the weekend as calls for his impeachment came to a crescendo.
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Gachagua has often identified himself as a child of the Mau Mau freedom fighters, who battled British colonial rule.
He was born in 1965 to parents who he has said were well known for their involvement in the struggle for freedom. His father built and serviced guns and his mother was a courier of ammunition and food for the fighters, Gachagua said.
His lineage has painted him as a champion of people in central Kenya, many of whom are descendants of independence struggle icons, but still continue to fight for economic freedom.
A popular catchphrase associated with the deputy president is “don’t touch the mountain”, a reference to his support base in the Mount Kenya region. However, he has also been accused of promoting tribalism rather than being a unifying figure.
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But Gachagua has defended himself, insisting that speaking for the central Kenya region is not the same as antagonising other communities.
Before joining politics, Gachagua had had a long career.
After completing university, he began working as a public administrator in government, and as a district officer in different locations across the country.
The district administrators of that time, during Daniel arap Moi’s presidency, were known for their high-handedness. It is an accusation that has stuck with him, including in present circumstances.
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He worked as Kenyatta’s personal assistant between 2001 and 2006 – at a time when Kenyatta was a minister, presidential candidate and later the leader of the opposition.
Gachagua is a wealthy politician, having built a fortune in business over the years. He is married to a pastor, Dorcas, and they have two adult sons.
In 2017, he vied for the Mathira constituency seat, winning the position that had earlier been held by his elder brother, Nderitu Gachagua.
It is at this time that Gachagua’s fiery character and political abilities started attracting attention.
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Yet his public utterances, before and since he became deputy president, have at times been seen as blunders or straight-up disgraceful comments.
He said last year that government was like a shareholding company, with those that voted for the current administration being more deserving of government appointments and contracts.
Senator Danson Mungatana last week said Gachagua’s words have “marginalised sections of Kenyans, created and continue to heighten ethnic tensions”.
Gachagua has often defended himself, but recently he acknowledged that in the end, it may be the very same thing that catapulted him to the top that will lead to his downfall: his way with words.
Another well-researched article about global agriculture (“The global power of Big Agriculture”, The Big Read, August 22). Yet when it comes to the actual farming and farmers there is a woeful lack of understanding and knowledge.
Yes, the well-funded lobbies (just as in Brussels) are all-powerful. But they are the commodity suppliers and traders and international actors with shareholders to satisfy. Farmers are subject to uncertain weather, volatile prices, byzantine regulatory systems and greedy interfering national governments.
As with coverage of climate, FT journalists seem to be only half informed. Farmers themselves are mainly poorly represented. Farming is an absolute necessity for life and the net zero-related emissions quoted for agriculture are always wildly wrong and remain scientifically unproven.
Geordie Burnett Stuart Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, UK
Everybody’s phone buzzed at once with an alert at around 19:30 local time.
It read: “You must enter a protected area immediately and remain there until further notice.”
The message was sent by the Israel Defense Forces’s Home Front Command and ended with the phrase “life-saving instructions”.
People began to head for shelter in safe rooms as missiles were launched towards Israel from Iran.
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The sirens sounding across the country were heard by millions.
As the wail of the alarm rang outside, we moved to the shelter in the BBC’s Jerusalem Bureau – a secure part of the building with no windows.
We could hear frequent booms as missiles flew overhead and were intercepted by Israel’s defence system.
Videos captured here and elsewhere shared on social media showed streams of light as the missiles flew over Israel – and clouds of smoke as they were intercepted or detonated on impact.
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“There’s loads of them,” a contact exclaimed in a video filmed in southern Israel that shows circles of light in the night sky.
At about 20:00, the IDF said its aerial defence array was identifying and intercepting the launches, and called on people to “remain in a protected space until further notice”.
It continued: “The explosions you are hearing are from interceptions and fallen projectiles.”
Concern had been mounting across Israel as reports emerged early in the evening that Iran was preparing a strike.
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It came hours after Israeli troops invaded Lebanon, in what its military calls a “limited, localised and targeted” ground operation against Hezbollah.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said it launched the missiles in retaliation for recent attacks that killed the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as a senior Iranian commander.
As missiles flew overhead, messages streamed in from people in different parts of the country, waiting in their safe rooms.
“There’s a lot of alarms all the time so we’re in the safe room… But we’re OK for now,” a mother of two in the south of Israel told me by voice note.
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“Very, very scary. I still cannot believe this is our life… it was VERY close,” a message from a journalist in Tel Aviv said.
“Usually we stay on our floor and don’t go down to the shelter but this time…we realised we had to go down.”
“It was very loud,” lawyer Efrat Eldan Schechter says by WhatsApp message from Ra’anana in central Israel, adding that she believes “it is not the end for tonight”.
“We need to see how it will evolve. It is very scary indeed… but we are strong and confident that our IDF will protect us. Iran just made a huge mistake.”
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About an hour after the first message, phones again vibrated with a new alert from the Home Front Command, telling people they could leave shelters and protected areas.
Following the strikes, the IDF spokesperson said there were some hits in central and southern Israel.
Videos later shared on social media showed damage from the missiles in multiple locations, including a large crater in the ground near Tel Aviv.
The Palestinian civil defence authority in the occupied West Bank city of Jericho said a man there died during the Iranian missile barrage.
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According to the AFP news agency, which spoke to city governor Hussein Hamayel, the victim was killed by falling rocket debris.
Israeli officials have not reported any serious injuries as a result of Tuesday’s air attacks.
“At this stage we don’t identify more launches from Iran. Stay responsible and listen to instructions,” IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a televised address.
Israel says at least 180 missiles were fired, most of them intercepted. It has said there will be “consequences”.
The FT analysis “US banks gain $1tn windfall from Fed’s era of high rates” (September 23) and, its assertion that the two and a half year era of Federal Reserve rate rises produced a “windfall” for US banks, falls short of what readers expect from the FT.
Banks’ core business is taking in deposits that are subject to changes in short-term interest rates and then lending to consumers and businesses at terms that are customised to serve their funding needs. How this calculation applies bank by bank depends on whether a bank is asset-sensitive or liability-sensitive, and the FT’s analysis (which was never fully shared with readers) completely misses this critical aspect of banks’ business decision-making and consumer choice.
Depositors — both consumers and businesses — have a variety of investment vehicles, and they do not exclusively choose banks for high rates. For example, investors can buy Treasuries at rates closer to the federal funds rate, but this may require them to lock their funds in without the flexibility of withdrawal upon demand. Banks provide security, convenience and accessibility of deposits, and depositors who value these elements over the rate make their decisions accordingly.
Ultimately, using the loaded language of “windfalls” obscures the choices businesses, consumers and banks make in a market environment. For example, during the Covid-19 pandemic and the two-year period of zero interest rate policy, the FT’s flawed methodology reveals that depositors received approximately $56bn in “excess” interest on savings.
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We didn’t see the FT reporting on that “windfall” for consumers because it would have painted an inaccurate picture. The same is true here.
Sayee Srinivasan Chief Economist, American Bankers Association, Washington, DC, US
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