Top 10 Kenyan female politicians with backs of steel

A business dominated by men, politics is probably the only game where one can change teams anytime and stab a teammate’s back. In this game of hard knocks  play a group of formidable women who have made a demonstrated the tenacity and a thick skin to soak up or deal blows to rivals with the cunning and cold calculation so central to the game. Below, the women with plenty of iron in their backs.

Martha Karua

Pushed into politics by what she has termed as “the repression” of the Kanu years, Martha Karua (above) started as the champion for democracy as a member of the Law Society of Kenya in the 80s. It was at this time together with other Kiraitu Murungi, Prof Kivutha Kibwana, Gitobu Imanyara, Paul Muite, Raila Odinga and other young Turks that Karua put her first efforts in the search of a new constitution.

Karua would be voted in as a member of parliament in 1992 and would later be part of the team that drafted the constitution of Kenya act in 1998.