Rigathi Gachagua is not going quietly. That much is clear. While courts deliberate on whether his impeachment stands — and whether he will ever be allowed to contest elective office again — Kenya’s former Deputy President has already made his move, and it is the kind of move that only someone who genuinely understands power would make.
Gachagua has publicly unveiled a political succession plan for the Mt Kenya region, confirming that he has spent deliberate time grooming a team of young leaders ready to step in if the judiciary shuts the door on his own political future ahead of the 2027 General Election. This is not panic. This is chess.
Think about what this actually means. If the courts uphold his impeachment and bar him from running, Gachagua does not disappear — he becomes a kingmaker. He transforms from a candidate into a force, the kind of behind-the-scenes operator who shapes electoral outcomes without appearing on a single ballot paper. That is a different kind of power, and in Kenyan politics, it is often the more durable kind.
Mt Kenya is not a monolithic bloc that obeys one voice, but it is a region that responds to organised political networks, and Gachagua has spent years building exactly that. The young leaders he claims to have mentored represent something specific: a generational transfer of loyalty, designed to ensure that whatever happens to him personally, his political influence survives the verdict.
For young, politically conscious Kenyans watching this unfold, the stakes are personal. The 2027 election is shaping up to be a defining moment — not just a choice between personalities, but a referendum on what accountability even means in this country. Gachagua was impeached. Whether that process was genuinely democratic or a choreographed political purge is a question that has not been honestly answered by those in power.
What is undeniable is that Gachagua has refused to accept the role of political casualty. By investing in a next generation of Mt Kenya leadership, he is signalling that the impeachment — whatever the court decides — did not break the network. It may have only reorganised it. And that is the part that should make every politically engaged Kenyan pay very close attention to what happens next.
