The DP should be an appointee of the President – Atwoli

By Peter Ochieng

Central Organization of Trade Unions (COTU-K) Secretary General Francis Atwoli has shared his views regarding the reported bad blood between President William Ruto, and his Deputy Rigathi Gachagua.

Gachagua has decried being humiliated, abused and looked down upon by some Cabinet Secretaries and Members of Parliament, in what some observers say is a repeat of a script followed when retired President Uhuru Kenyatta was in office, while Ruto was serving as his Deputy.

However, Atwoli insists that as the number two, the DP is ‘there to be seen and not to be heard.’  “A deputy president should not be heard unless he has been told so. We can’t have two presidents at a time,” he said.

Unlike the previous constitution, Article 148 of the 2010 constitution states that for a person to become the Deputy President, he or she must be nominated as the running mate of a candidate in the presidential elections, and the person must qualify to be nominated as a candidate for election as president.

Upon a person being nominated as a running mate and the candidate wins elections as the President, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) then declares that the candidate is the President-elect, and the running mate is subsequently the Deputy President-elect.

The Deputy President-elect takes office on the same day as the President-elect and serves from the date sworn in until the next President-elect is sworn in or leaves office via resignation, death or being removed from office under the conditions provided by the constitution.

Atwoli says going forward, in order to end squabbles between the President and his or her deputy, the second in command should be appointed.

“The deputy president should be an appointee of the president, because once he becomes a running mate, he feels he is also a president.”

The COTU boss called for the arrest of Gachagua, accusing him of misleading the nation.