The Kenyan Senate voted on Thursday to oust Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua in a historic impeachment vote.

The upper house has so far voted to impeach the 59-year-old on five charges out of a total of 11 against him, after two days of hearings.

The Senate only had to find him guilty of one charge to remove him from office.

He is the first deputy president to be ousted in this manner since impeachment was introduced in Kenya’s revised 2010 constitution.

A similar motion against President William Ruto’s number two was overwhelmingly approved by the lower house National Assembly last week.

The Senate session had plunged into disarray earlier Thursday after Gachagua was admitted to hospital with severe chest pains and failed to testify in his defence.

The 11 charges — which Gachagua had vigorously denied — included corruption, insubordination, money-laundering, undermining the government, practising ethnically divisive politics, bullying public officers and threatening a judge.

AFP