The sprawling populous Rift Valley Province may be setting a Gender Revolution in elective parliamentary leadership in Kenya with an ever increasing election of women members of parliament.
With the recent election to parliament of Ms. Beatrice Pauline Kones and Dr. Joyce Labosso in the just ended Sotik and Bomet by-elections that were occasioned by the death of ministers, Kipkalya Kones and Lorna Labosso, the province has upped its take of women parliamentarians to seven.
Apart from just politics, the gender revolution trend being set by the rift valley province is also taking place in sports, particularly in athletics where Pamela Jelimo made history by being the first woman athlete in the country to win the Olympics gold medal and bagging more than Kshs. 70 million.
The women in the province are also not being left behind in various professional fields of study where they have specialized and excelled as evidenced by the increasing number of the professionals holding senior positions both in public and private sectors in the country.
What is more surprising about these recent developments in the country’s national politics is the fact the Kalenjin community which has produced these leaders has traditionally been stereo typed as a community that is deeply steeped in traditions that are oppressive and retrogressive to the development of the women folk.
The situation was not made any better over the decades with the protracted wars against entrenched Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) culture and the role men from that community played in entrenching it as well as resisting efforts to end the practice.
Though at the last general elections, the province in general is estimated to have fielded more female parliamentary and civic candidates, compared to the other provinces, it has since emerged that it has more women who are ready to put up a spirited fight in the male dominated political sphere and win with landslide victories as was the case With both Kones and Labosso.
To date it also boasts of a higher number of women leaders in the cabinet of the current grand opposition government led by retired veteran career civil service lady, Dr. Sally Kosgey who rose through the ranks to become the country’s first head of the civil service and secretary to the cabinet and now minister for higher education.
The other cabinet minister is Hellen Sambili, the minister for gender, youth and sports and assistant minister, Linah Chebii Kilimo who was the first cabinet minister from the province during the last NARC government until when she was sacked for being critical of the same government as well as the late Lorna Laboso.
Apart from these leaders, the elected women legislators from the province who are setting the gender revolution for other provinces to follow in total include, Prof. Magaret Kamar, Dr. Kosgey, Prof. Sambili, Ms. Kones, Dr. Labosso, Ms. Kilimo and Ms. Peris Cepchumba of Eldoret South constituency.
It will not come as a surprise if the two new MPs are appointed to the grand coalition cabinet with perhaps Ms. Kones taking up a full ministerial post like her late husband Kipkalya Kones and Dr. Labosso appointed as an assistant minister a post held by her late sister Lona before the two died in a plane crash.
This will also automatically increase the number of women leaders who are within the grand coalition cabinet from the rift valley thus setting up a complete departure from archaic and discriminative traditional practices against women out of which many communities in the country are yet to emerge.
These are not the only leaders from the province who have graced the country’s August house since independence right from Kenyatta’s regime through that of retired former president Daniel Arap Moi to the current Mwai Kibaki regime.
The trend shows that there has been a steady growth in numbers of women, particularly from the larger Kalenjin community who have bested their male counterparts in the game of politics compared to other areas where the growth has been slower.
Perhaps the best contrast could be Western Province with its diverse range of sub-ethnic communities of the larger Luhyia community that has over the years since 1970s when the first woman legislator to grace parliament in 1974, Prof. Julia Ojiambo, has hardly produced any other woman legislator to parliament.
Nyanza province is no better since the exit from parliament of former women legislators, Phoebe Asiyo and Grace Ogot while others to date have never elected a woman legislator to parliament.
When Ms. Kones and Dr. Labosso increased the number of women legislators elected to the tenth parliament from Rift Valley from six at the end of the 2007 general elections to seven, the province hit the headlines of some of the national dailies for scoring a first since independence.
At the national level, the total number of women legislators in the tenth parliament is documented as the highest since independence with twenty-two as well as those who were appointed to ministerial positions compared to previous regimes.
National leaders from all sides of the country’s political divide hailed Rift Valley residents for electing women MPs in the then just-concluded Sotik and Bomet by-elections with un-fettered excitement by the twin victories, saying it was praiseworthy that the voters turned against cultural beliefs to embrace women’s leadership.
Gender and Children Affairs Minister Esther Murugi said the victories were a confirmation that women can be trusted with leadership and are capable of winning the fight for equal representation in parliament just like their colleagues recently proved in Rwanda where even the new Speaker of the National Assembly defeated male colleagues in the contest for the job.
Ms. Murugi said voters from other regions like the central, western, Nyanza, Eastern, North Eastern, Nairobi and Coast provinces should replicate the Rift Valley example and elect more women leaders into parliament instead of being mired and held in captivity by archaic and retrogressive traditional beliefs.
The minister says that it does not matter the political party which got the victory in the Sotik and Bomet by-elections because, "Victory might have gone to ODM, but in this particular one, it is not about PNU or ODM, it is about women and we are very happy.”
Co-operatives Development Assistant Minister Ms. Kilimo appealed to President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga to appoint women to fill the two vacant ministerial slots, sentiments that were similarly echoed by Ms. Murugi as well as the chairman Maendeleo ya Wanawake, Ms. Rukia Subow and former veteran MP, Phoebe Asiyo.
Ms. Kilimo said, “These victories by Ms. Kones and Dr Laboso are just the beginning of a gender revolution that should sweep the rest of the country just like in Rwanda which has made history in the world by electing the highest number of women legislators to their parliament.”
The Marakwet East MP is also chairperson of the Women Parliamentarians Association of Kenya, says that women in the Grand Coalition Cabinet are so far performing very well in their respective ministries and given the opportunity are likely to revolutionise the parliamentary performance in national development.
Former Karachuonyo MP Phoebe Asiyo asked Raila Odinga who is expected to nominate two MPs for the seats to appoint a woman to take the Roads docket. "If the vacant seat did not go to a woman, then I shall conclude that something is terribly wrong somewhere," Asiyo said.
That is perhaps the biggest question that voters in other provinces in the country should be asking themselves to rectify the gender imbalances that continue to plague them in the country’s elective leadership positions right from the civic authorities’ levels to parliamentary.
