The poll covered various regions including the Mount Kenya region where results contradicted those of the rest of the country, most of them taking the DP’s side and others citing reasons for their stance.
With Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua set to address the nation on Monday night, October 7 at 7 pm, Trends and Insights for Africa (TIFA) released its survey on the impeachment motion against him conducted between October 1 to October 4, just a few days before the Public Participation exercise.
The poll covered various regions including the Mount Kenya region where results contradicted those of the rest of the country, most of them taking the DP’s side and others citing reasons for their stance.
TIFA revealed that 69 percent of Mt Kenya residents were against the motion whereas 20 percent of residents from the region supported the impeachment, with 11 percent undecided.
Graphic of embattled Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and Parliament during a past session. /PARLIAMENT OF KENYA.DPPS.VIRAL TEA KE
As aforementioned, Kenyans were divided over the impeachment of Gachagua, with 38 percent opposing it, 41 percent supporting it, and 21 percent undecided.
“Overall, Kenyans are quite divided over the current effort to remove Gachagua from office by impeachment, with only a slight plurality in support of it (41% vs. 38%). However, a clear contrast is seen between residents of the Mt. Kenya region and those of all other regions, with well over twice as many of the former opposed to it (69% vs. 28%),” read part of the survey.
It was further revealed that those who support the DP’s impeachment are more negative about his performance as compared with those who oppose it.
TIFA went on to list seven main reasons Kenyans were backing Gachagua’s impeachment, the top being ethnic discrimination and hate speech at 35 percent, followed by a mix of poor performance, bad leadership and false promises at 20 percent.
Corruption and abuse of office followed suit at 13 percent, with 12 percent of Kenyans citing disagreements with President William Ruto, a de ja vu scenario given how prominent the disagreements between Ruto and his predecessor, Uhuru Kenyatta, were.
2 percent cited disagreements with other leaders of the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) but 1 percent cited an intriguing reason, supporting Gen Z protests which began following the introduction of the deleted Finance Bill 2024. 17 percent had no opinion on the matter.
“By far, the most frequent reason for supporting the DP’s impeachment (by those who do so) is his perceived discriminatory attitude and speech in favour of his own (Mt. Kenya) community (35%), though “poor performance”/”bad leadership” (20%) may also include such a failure together with various others.
“Significantly, however, a considerable proportion who favour his impeachment could (or would) not offer any reason for doing so (17%),” TIFA stated.
The poll was conducted between October 1 and October 4, 2024, and it involved 1,892 respondents distributed across counties proportionate to population size.
Data collection was done using telephonic interviews and the survey has a margin error of +/- 2.25 percent.
Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua accompanied the President on a three-day tour of Kisii and Nyamira Counties. /RIGATHI GACHAGUA
