Is Raila’s 10 million signature drive to oust President Ruto a pipe dream?

While announcing the commencement of the signature drive at Kamukunji grounds in Nairobi on Friday, July 7, 2023, Odinga said the exercise is meant to withdraw delegated powers to elected leaders that would then culminate into a referendum to impeach President Ruto.  

“We have begun the movement to collect signatures to enable Kenyans to withdraw their delegated powers to the elected leaders and take it themselves. We will carry out a referendum to delegitimise this regime,” Odinga said.

But is Azimio la Umoja’s ambiguous plan anchored in the 2010 constitution? 

Constitutional lawyer Bobby Mkangi says Azimio’s move is a political strategy and that there is no legal basis that allows the impeachment of an incumbent president through signatures however popular they may be. 

“The collection of the signatures has no direct constitutional implications because signatures cannot be used to impeach an incumbent president but it is a political strategy to express a vote of no confidence in Ruto’s administration. It is not a measure to remove a sitting president constitutionally ” he told Citizen Digital. 

Lawyer Mkangi says impeaching a president in Kenya is a tedious process that involves both the Senate and the National Assembly. 

The 2010 constitution provides room for the removal of a president from office but the motion must be supported by at least two-thirds of Members of the National Assembly. The National Assembly Speaker would then inform the Senate Speaker who only has seven days to convene a meeting or form a special committee to investigate the conduct of the president. 

“If one wants to impeach a president, he/she will have to submit a petition in the National Assembly. The Assembly would then debate and endorse it by a majority vote. The speaker will then forward the report to the Senate Speaker because it is the Senate who undertakes the presidential impeachment process,” Lawyer Bobby Mkangi adds. 

Azimio la Umoja deputy leader Martha Karua has however said that the ongoing campaign to collect 10 million signatures will serve as a roll call aimed at disapproving Ruto’s presidency. 

"Even with huge rallies, it is not possible to demonstrate that a majority of Kenyans support us. Therefore, signature collection is like a roll call and a general meeting, which will be held in various places within Kenya,” Martha Karua said.

In 2016, Raila, through the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) embarked on a signature collection drive through the Okoa Kenya amendment Bill to amend the constitution through a referendum.

The coalition collected 1.4 million signatures which were verified by Isaack Hassan-led IEBC. The electoral body threw out the petition claiming some sections of the Okoa Kenya booklets had incomprehensible writings and drawings burying Raila’s dream of amending the constitution through a referendum.