Women in Kenyan Politics, Challenges And The Silver Lining

Kenya has made progress to increase women’s equality through policies and legislative frameworks and above all enhance women’s participation in politics. However, gender disparity remains significant in Kenyan politics.

The Global Gender Gap Report 2020 shows that Kenya is still lagging in progress towards achieving gender parity, scoring lower than some of its peers in the region. 

The latest research findings from Trends for Insights Africa (TIFA) – “Women in Politics: Community, family and political parties to blame for the low numbers”,  cites lack of support from communities and inadequate financing as a major hindrance to women who seek to vie for elective seats in Kenya.

The study was conducted between February 3-9 among 1,541 respondents, scoring the two issues at 50 percent and 39 percent respectively.

Another research, “Cost of Politics” by the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) in collaboration with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD), and Mzalendo shows that besides patriarchal norms, women candidates making it in politics spend significantly more. Link https://costofpolitics.net/east-africa/kenya/ 

“The high cost of politics is excluding capable candidates without access to sizeable resources,” part of the research authored by Mr. Tom Mboya and Prof Karuti Kanyinga reads.

For instance, women spent an average of KSh23.6 million ($240,000) compared to men’s average of KSh17 million ($155,000) in their quest for a political seat.

“Regardless of the seat in question, the more you spend, the greater the chances of winning unless you are a woman. Overall, women outspent men in all elective posts except the Senate. Despite this, from a total of roughly 1,800 aspirants, for the National Assembly single-member constituency seats, for example, only 131 women candidates made it to the ballot. Only 18% of those women were elected.”

Nevertheless, the inclusion of women in politics plays an important role in promoting women’s entry into the political space. However, since the promulgation of the 2010 Kenya Constitution, parliament has failed to pass the 2/3rds gender rule.

Article 177(1)(b) and (c) of the 2010 Constitution, which included in the composition of county assemblies ‘the number of special seat members necessary to ensure that no more than two-thirds of the membership of the assembly is of the same gender.

Article 90 (1) provides that ‘elections for the seats in Parliament provided for under Articles 97 (1) (c) and 98 (1) (b), (c) and (d), and for the members, of county assemblies under 177 (1) (b) and (c), shall be on the basis of proportional representation by use of party lists.

Fortunately, the country benefits from the affirmative action policies such as the nomination positions reserved for women, youth, and people with disability, and elective parliamentary representative seats in every constituency reserved for women candidates.

It is also true that socio-cultural factors prevent women from winning seats consistently outspending more than men. Besides the numerous challenges, there is a silver lining for women seeking elective seats according to TIFA.

In the survey, of all the respondents polled, 10 percent expressed interest in Governor seats compared to the 13 percent rate for men.

25 percent of women expressed interest in the Member of County Assembly (MCA) seat compared to men at 36 percent while 20 percent of women declared interest in MP seats compared to men at 20 percent.

This is just that women are no longer giving more interest in affirmative action seats. In addition,  gender quotas for party primaries and a reduction of electoral fees for women contesting at all levels could help increase their representation. 

Two, Political parties play a much great role in ensuring women’s representation is achieved from within and can be critical in addressing the issue of finance.

Finally, greater advocacy is needed in sensitizing the public on the capability of women in leadership positions and changing attitudes.

Edited by David Indeje