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Anne Waiguru, Charity Ngilu and Joyce Laboso are on the way to becoming the first three women governors, after this week’s General Election.
The three should bring a welcome feminine touch to the male dominated Council of Governors, and to devolved government.
In the 2013 elections, only a simple handful of women came within a whiff of the governor’s office, as deputy governors. Like all other deputy governors, those women have only played a symbolic role.
The men who ran for office with them bragged that they were progressive, because of choosing female running mates.
From another reckoning, the women were supposed to be magnets that would attract female votes.
These deputy governors have often locked up themselves in quarrels with their bosses, because of the feeling that they have been dumped in the office as part of the old furniture. It was never quite clear what their role was.
Fed up of idleness, they have often taken on their bosses in quarrels that have spilt into public space.
Such has been the case, for example, with Ruth Odinga of Kisumu County, and Hazel Katana of Mombasa.
The arrival of Waiguru, Ngilu and Laboso should, accordingly, be a breath of fresh air in county government. The numbers remain abysmally depressing, however.
When Kenyans promulgated the Constitution in 2010, they dreamt of a situation in which women would take up at least one-third of all elective positions in the country.
Three women in a Council of 47 Governors will only constitute a paltry 6.3 per cent. We remain a long way from a feminine Canaan.
Tragically, the story of women in electoral office in Kenya has been a disappointing seesaw. Just when you begin thinking that a significant breakthrough is being made, you are rudely shocked when, in the next cycle of elections, the numbers drop abysmally.
The ended 11th Parliament teases you with the thought that women have finally been included; on account of the 47 Women County Representatives in the National Assembly and 16 nominated Senators.
Put together with the few who were elected in non-affirmative action competition, the 11th Parliament had a record 86 women.
The bad news is that if there are less than 87 women in the National Assembly, the 12th Parliament will be unconstitutional.
Kenyans could go to court to dissolve it. It will be most interesting to see how this pans out, over the next few months.
Meanwhile, the celebration of the arrival of Kenya’s three female governors is not without a blot. One of the misgivings about Kenya’s male dominated political leadership has been its felonious and predatory nature.
Since independence in 1963, the Kenyan state has been an eating edifice. People arrive in office with sharp appetite and even sharper teeth.
They try their rodent-like teeth on virtually anything and everything in sight to find out if it is edible. Hence a wheelbarrow that ordinarily costs Sh6, 000 ends up costing Sh149, 000.
They will come up with bull and cock stories to try to explain away the heist. That is when you hear phraseology like “non- carcinogenic” and allied abracadabra. In the end, they get away with it. Kenyans laugh it off and the story rests there.
Do our elect women governors arrive with clean hands? How I would wish that I could easily answer in the affirmative! Regrettably, aspersions have been cast.
Charity Ngilu
We do not know the extent of their validity. Yet, can we afford to ignore them? The Kitui Governor Elect, Charity Ngilu, is a lady of many firsts.
She was the first woman to have a go at the presidency in 1997, under the Social Democratic Party. Now she is the first woman governor in Kitui, and Ukambani, besides being among the first three.
She is a bold political player who has taken on all and sundry – from President Moi to Kibaki – when the occasion has demanded that she does so.
She has been in and out of association with NASA leaders Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka, and with President Kenyatta and his deputy, William Ruto.
In the thick of the effort to remove Kanu from power, she shrugs off an affront by detractors who tried to deride her for strategizing with Kibaki and former Vice President Michael Wamalwa.
“What are two men doing with one woman in hotels?” they would ask. She just ignored them, and the rest is history.
Yet Mama Rainbow, as she came to be fondly known, has had her low moments. When matters of integrity are mentioned, her tenure in the Water, Medical Services and Lands portfolios will come to hound her.
Unfortunately, some of the sticking matters have never been exhaustively dealt with. Mama Rainbow, therefore, begins her new tour of duty with troubled history about integrity issues that she may very well be innocent of.
Yet, it will be impossible to ignore them. She, however, knows how to walk the tight rope. She should be able to navigate her way through the next five years without getting derailed.
Anne Waiguru
Kirinyaga’s Anne Waiguru is a different ball game, altogether. She is whispered to be deep heeled in powerful places. And she has also run into trouble with alternative centres of power, and with a hugely hypocritical Kenyan populace on matters of integrity. In a country that is famous for decrying corruption, Kenyans hounded Waiguru out of office as Cabinet Secretary for Devolution and National Planning in 2015, over hitherto unconfirmed allegations of putting her hand in the till. A parliamentary probe into the affair last year kept running into headwinds because of political partisanship and ethnic blinkers. When caving into the pressure, Waiguru herself cited poor health as the reason she was quitting. She, however, placed herself at the country’s disposal for any “light duties” the President may be minded to give her.
Now Waiguru is set to be a governor, an assignment very few would look at as “light duty.” The people of Kirinyaga brushed aside public scorn in the rest of the country about her alleged involvement with malfeasance that easily runs into billions of shilling in the National Youth Service (NYS) scandal of 2013 – 2015.
Of course both the Governor Elect and those who have elected her reserve their democratic rights in this matter.
Yet, public perceptions about the NYS are likely to persist. Also unsubstantiated are issues about the Huduma Centres, for which she enjoyed international recognition and decorations.
Touted to be a workaholic, she might just shrug this off and move on with her work for the people of Kirinyaga, even as her fiercest adversary, Martha Karua, comes to terms with what hit her.
Theirs was a battle of two iron ladies and one was always going to come on top of the other – and of all the male contenders for the seat.
Joyce Laboso
Laboso takes over from the maverick Isaac Ruto in Bomet, with an unblemished record. The former MP for Sotik and Deputy Speaker is an iconic politician who was flung into politics in the wake of tragic happenings, when she lost her sister, Lorna, in a light aircraft crash in 2008.
Lorna had only recently been elected to Kenya’s Tenth Parliament as a first term MP. In the subsequent by-election, the Governor Elect sailed home comfortably, to begin a career that has seen her political star continue to rise and shine steadily.
As far as is known, hers has been an unblemished record this far. She now begins the real test of her political career, however.
If she navigates her way well through the mud of county politics, she could easily be someone to watch for higher and greater things in years to come.
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