As votes are counted in Kenya’s recent presidential election, Martha Karua has the chance to make history as the country’s first female vice president.
She’s fighting for gender equality and climbing the ladder in a country that frequently sees violent attacks on female candidates.
In this current election cycle alone, there have already been dozens of attacks on women candidates.
As the running mate to Kenya’s opposition leader and presidential candidate, Raila Odinga, the two head the Azimio La Umoja (One Kenya Alliance) coalition and have faced off against two male leaders, Deputy President William Ruto and lawmaker Rigathi Gachagua, in the August 9th presidential, legislative and local elections.
With two out of the last three polls in these elections seeing violence and disputes over alleged rigging, Karua has said Azimio’s priority if elected would be to stamp out corruption by doing things such as looking closer into the private wealth of public sector workers and political leaders.
In Kenya, which is East Africa’s biggest economy, corruption costs the government a third of its budget every year, about 800 billion shillings or $6.8 billion.
Stability for Kenya is on the ballot in these elections and Karua says Azimio would use the recovered money to fund her coalition’s plan to offer direct monthly support to 2 million of Kenya’s poorest people.
“Corruption is strangling or choking the nation,” says Karua.
Also on Karua’s agenda if elected: lowering public debt that has more than tripled since Kenyatta entered office in 2013.
As a veteran politician, Karua is no stranger to standing up to power.
She worked as a lawyer in the early 1990s, laying the ground for Kenya’s constitutional charter and fighting for multi-party democracy. In 1992, she was one of the first women to become a member of parliament and ran for the presidency in the 2013 elections.
After being denied a chance to speak, she defiantly walked out of a rally by former authoritarian president Mxai Kibaki in 2001, and resigned from government in 2009 in disagreement with then president Mwai Kibaki on issues relating to human rights, tackling corruption and judicial appointments.
In a 2022 interview, she said “strong leadership in women is seen as an exception” in response to being nicknamed “Iron Lady” and calling it a sexist trope.
Karua is a strong voice for under-represented women in Kenyan politics and Odinga has designated her as his justice minister if they win.
Gender equality is also on the ballot in these elections and her candidacy has been seen as a strategy by the Azimio alliance to win over female voters and send a signal that their concerns matter.
Immediately after Odinga announced her as his running mate, Karua received attacks from her opponents that were both personal and gendered. One such insult thrown about was from Ruto and Gachagua, who both refused to call her by her name and referred to her in Swahili as “huyo mama”, meaning “that woman” in English.
She’s also been discriminated against by male politicians for not being married, and has been called “cucu”, a Kikuyu term for grandmother because of her age of 64.
None of this has deterred Karua, however, who has taken on such gendered insults as a way to appeal to Kenyan women who are all too familiar with this kind of disrespect.
Addressing single mothers directly, Karua says, “I am one of you and we have plans for you.”
“If you see your mother represented somewhere, she won’t forget your problems.”
With sexist language and misogyny rampant in Kenyan politics, Karua’s vice presidential win would be both significant and symbolic for Kenyan women’s empowerment.
Not only would she become the highest ranking woman in the history of Kenya, but her leadership could inspire the ascent of other women politicians and help transform gender equality in the country.