Women Are Willing and Able To Lead, Support Them.

The announcement of Martha Karua as the choice running mate for the Azimio Coalition on Monday 16^th April 2022 was met with a lot of jubilation across the country. Simply being that she could be first woman poised to sit in the office of the Deputy President of Kenya. However, this isn’t the highest a woman has aspired to reach politically before in the country. Martha Karua herself ran for President in 2013 and she doesn’t remain the only woman to do it. Current Kitui Governor, Charity Ngilu took a stab at it in 1997 with another woman, Wangari Maathai, being on the same ballot.

Another fact is that Raila Odinga isn’t the only one fielding a female running mate for the presidency. Reuben Kigame and Prof. George Wajackoyah each unveiled their female running mates making this the highest number of women nominees on the presidential ballot in Kenya’s history. These statistics give a glimmer of hope given Kenya’s poor track record with women leadership. In the 2017 general election, women occupied 172 seats out of the 1883 elected seats in Kenya, up from 145 in 2013.

The two-thirds gender principle as envisioned in Article 27(8) in the Constitution still seems like a far-fetched dream with very little progress to show. Ten years since the promulgation of the Constitution women are still being handed the shorter end of the stick in politics by political parties, media and even the citizens. Take for instance the recently conducted party primaries, where negotiated democracy or zoning forced some women to step down to let their male counterparts carry the party flags. This was an issue that was echoed by some of the participants during the national dialogue on the two-thirds gender requirement that we jointly held with the Catholic University of Eastern Africa and the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA).

The aspirants felt that their political ambitions and groundwork was not being complemented by their political parties that have had to bow to their coalitions’ demands. The strategy to gain as many votes as possible has seen women step down in favor of their seasoned, male counterparts and asked to rally behind them.

This coupled with the Kenyans’ lack of faith in women leadership could stand between us and women occupying more seats after August 9^th 2022. A segment of our SMS users had previously given reasons why they wouldn’t vote for a woman. Some quoted religious reasons and traditions and/or customs that all boiled down to patriarchy and how we’ve been socialized. Women are deemed incapable of leadership not because they’ve tried and failed but because most voters would rather deal with the familiar and known.

Sadly, media has time and again fallen short of the expectation to change the narrative on women leadership. It manifests in the way women are covered and portrayed in stories, their imagery and even the interview questions they encounter. In a past interview, Martha Karua gave an apt response to the question “Is the country ready for a female president?”. If anything, the country should be questioning whether male dominance at the presidential level has been of benefit or otherwise to the country. Media should rise above the sexism and bias and give women fair and balanced coverage.

Our previous scorecards and Shujaaz Awards have proven that women are capable of leading and advancing change. Despite their low numbers in the House, female Parliamentarians still strive to advance legislations and policies that address the needs for Kenyans. Through the lens of women legislators, there have been attempts to make laws, policies and budgets more gender-responsive and inclusive.

There’s a lot that can be said to make a good case for women leadership but the hope is that we, stakeholders, can see women’s vision, interrogate their agenda, and consider them on merit and not through a biased, gendered lens. This general election is rife with opportunity to change the narrative and possibly open the doors to a change in leadership. Let’s make the most of it!

Posted by Loise Mwakamba on May 16, 2022

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