Kenya has good laws but irredeemably tainted leaders

Members of Meru County Assembly voted to impeach Governor Kawira Mwangaza. The MCAs advanced numerous impeachment grounds, including nepotism and abuse of office. The governor, who this week went before a Senate committee, argues that the impeachment was political vendetta fuelled by the fact that she is politically “independent”. The Senate overturned her impeachment.

If the impeachment articles as advanced by the MCAs were partly or wholly true, then the governor has no business running a kindergarten, let alone a county government. However, if her impeachment was arising from disagreements on policy positions, or, as she claims, political vendetta, then the country as a whole must find a constitutional or statutory way of, (1) taming “ trigger-happy” MCAs; and (2) removing the obvious conflict of interest arising from senators presiding over cases of governors they have ambitions of replacing.