How Governor Amos Nyaribo survived impeachment on a technicality

Nyamira County Governor Amos Nyaribo survived an impeachment bid on Wednesday on a technicality after it emerged that the County Assembly did not follow due process.

Nyaribo fought to convince the Senate to debate and vote on his preliminary objection (PO) to his ouster bid on grounds that the Assembly did not meet the threshold required to send him home.

A total of 38 senators voted to uphold the PO, with the Governor escaping a full trial due to the Members of County Assembly (MCAs) failing to comply with the law.

“Senators have tonight (Wednesday) voted to uphold a preliminary objection raised by Amos Nyaribo, Governor of Nyamira county, opposing his impeachment trial on grounds that the County Assembly did not meet the required threshold in the vote that approved his impeachment. Consequently, the impeachment proceedings stand terminated, and Nyaribo remains in office,” Senate Speaker Amason Kingi said soon after the vote.

At the core of his PO was what constitutes the threshold in a County Assembly and whether the law allows MCAs to vote by proxy.

In its November 25 session, Nyamira County Assembly had 19 MCAs in the chambers, yet 23 voted to send the impeachment motion to the Senate for trial.

Assembly Speaker Thadeus Nyabaro ignored the Standing Order number 67 of the Nyamira County Assembly Standing Orders, which requires that decisions of the Assembly be made by ‘members present and voting’.

Instead, he relied on Standing Order number 1, which allows him to give guidance on a procedural matter that is not sufficiently provided for in the rules.

In doing so, Nyabaro allowed four MCAs absent to vote by ‘proxy’, setting the stage for Nyaribo to question the legality of the vote, as three of those MCAs absent denied giving written authority to the speaker to appoint their proxy voters.

Besides proxy voting, the Senate was faced with a question of determining whether the Assembly achieved the two-thirds voting threshold for the motion to succeed.

Counsel for the County Assembly, Katwa Kigen, countered that the threshold depends on the assembly’s effective membership at the time, factoring in any vacancies, and therefore could vary.

Section 33(2) of the County Governments Act required “all the members of the county assembly” to cast their vote. However, at the time of the motion, the Assembly was made up of only 32 out of 35 members as three wards had pending by-elections.

This meant that the threshold to be met was 24 and not 23; the two-thirds requirement mathematically amounts to 23.33 members, meaning the assembly needed at least 24 votes.

“Have we been properly invited, or has a governor come through the door, or has this matter been thrown through the window?” Majority Leader Aaron Cheruiyot quipped while supporting the motion to vote on the PO.

“The principle under Section 33 has not been met,” Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei said.

MCAs Priscilla Nyatichi, Julius Obonyo, Elijah Abere, and Gladys Moraa, were expected to testify in case of a full trial as they had disowned letters sent to the Nyamira Speaker authorising proxy voting.