Senate Saves Governor Kawira Mwangaza From Impeachment Again
This is after the Senators voted on midnight, Thursday, November 9 to dismiss all charges levelled against her that warranted her second impeachment.
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Embattled Meru Governor, Kawira Mwangaza has escaped having her impeachment confirmed by the Senate for the second successive time.
This is after the Senators voted on midnight, Thursday, November 9 to dismiss all seven charges levelled against her that warranted her second impeachment.
"The result of the division indicates that the Senate has not upheld any of the impeachment charges. The Senate has failed to remove from office by impeachment Governor Kawira Mwangaza and the Governor accordingly continues to hold office," Senate Speaker Amason Kingi announced after the Senators cast their votes.
The condition was for only one of the charges to be upheld that would guarantee her impeachment, but that was not to be after majority of the legislators voted against the seven allegations levelled against her.
Meru Governor Kawira Mwangaza weeps during the proceedings of her impeachment case on November 8, 2022. /SENATE KENYA
Meru MCAs previously cited seven violations committed by Mwangaza as grounds for another attempt at impeaching her from the top county seat, including one that addressed her working relationship with Meru Deputy Governor Isaac Mutuma.
Four of them were similar to allegations made against Mwangaza last year. They included charges of nepotism, usurpation of roles belonging to the Meru County Public Service Board, contempt of the Assembly, inciting residents against other leaders, and making insulting remarks against them.
The representatives also listed various accusations against the governor, claiming that she had grossly violated the Constitution and County Government Act in relation to the use of public resources and management. One of them included illegally naming a public road after her husband, Murega Baichu.
Mwangaza was also accused of bullying, vilifying, and demeaning other leaders, including her deputy.
Earlier, Mwangaza was haunted during her physical appearance before the Senate on Wednesday, November 8 by a series of past videos indicating how she was subjected to threats of molestation.
As she was giving her submissions during the ongoing impeachment trial, her defence team played videos in front of Senators indicating explicit remarks by several politicians in Meru County in a relentless push to have her impeached.
One such video, labelled 3A by the defence team, captured the words of Tigania East Member of Parliament (MP) Mpuru Aburi, which the defence team believed was the genesis of the Keberi movement that it claims is aimed at kicking her out of office.
"Kawira Mwangaza should be told to respect men. 'Bring that stick, where is it?'. I have come with this stick replicating the male organ. The stick is for Kawira Mwangaza. This stick is for penetrating Kawira Mwangaza. She was sluted by men and became wide.
"She is only left with this stick as all men have left her. And she will know I usually say it and it happens. Do you want us to insert it inside her?" Aburi said in the video that was played before the Senators.
"Are you able to explain what he is saying?" Mwangaza was asked.
The county boss however struggled to make clear the context of Aburi's sentiments, saying "He is talking about... that they will use that thing to… " before she broke down in tears.
"Because it has been done by so many men and now they are ready. As Members of Parliament, him being the leader to do that to me. And he has recruited so many young men for the purpose of that Kiberi movement together with the deputy speaker of this House," Kawira recollected herself and submitted before the Senators.
The governor also broke down to tears as the Senate replayed a clip of a group of angry youth slaughtering a cow believed to be six months pregnant, which she was donating to a vulnerable family.
Her lawyers nonetheless put up a spirited fight for two days by tabling their evidence and lined up various witnesses to defend her.
During the proceedings, Mwangaza also claimed that her deputy Isaac Mutuma is a beneficiary of an Okolea Program that forms part of the issues surrounding her impeachment hearing, adding that it was the programme that shot him into the spotlight.
"My deputy governor was a 'prison askari', and this program was the one that elevated us to lead the county government, and, unfortunately, he is dismissing a program that elevated him," she said.
"In this video, my deputy is telling residents of where he comes from to reject the Okolea program as it's for the poor."
She continued to explain that the deputy governor mobilised youth who were chanting songs, against her saying they would support her deputy for the gubernatorial position.
"That is my deputy governor with some youth from his area saying the governor does not have a home, and only does prostitution in the country. They are praising him to take over the position of the governor of Meru, because, I am just a woman before them," she explained.
Meru Governor Kawira Mwangaza in a police car in Imenti on Wednesday, October 18, 2023. /KAWIRA MWANGAZA
"The MP is saying the father of Kawira is a Kikuyu and the mother is also from Kikuyu and they don't want to be ruled by a Kikuyu in Meru and they want to be ruled by a Meru."
Mwangaza's appearance at the Senate was her second of the sort since she was spared from being the first governor in President William Ruto's first term to be kicked out of a county office in Kenya, after the Senate dismissed a decision by Meru MCAs to kick her out of office on December 30, 2022.
Senator Boni Khalwale's led committee tabled a report on the floor of the house. The Senate resolved to form an 11-member committee to investigate Governor Mwangaza following her impeachment by the Meru County Assembly on December 14, 2022.
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