The nomination of Martha Karua as Raila Odinga's running mate caused a lot of excitement among women. Women looked at Ms Karua’s nomination as a way of having their voices heard at the decision-making table.
Two months down the line and opinion pollsters are painting a different picture—that women are not supporting one of their own. According to a survey by TIFA, comparing the main presidential contenders and their running-mates in terms of gender, more men than women support both Odinga-Karua and Ruto-Gachagua tickets.
I know for a fact that pollsters have never been 100 per cent accurate. Nevertheless, it is still disappointing that from the women who took part in the TIFA survey, it looks like we still don’t have strong political support for female candidates like Karua.
It is really disappointing that despite various opportunities being presented to us by various presidential candidates, women are still not keen to support their own.
The political platform given to us should excite us until the day of casting our ballot. Kenya Kwanza UDA’s presidential Candidate William Ruto plan for women is really attractive. He has promised to give half of his cabinet to women should he be elected.
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Raila (Azimio), David Mwaure Waihiga of Agano Party and George Wajackoya of Roots Party, all have female running mates. All these presidential candidates have shown strong support of women.
Women, we are like soldiers planning to win a battle. Our battle is to ensure that we have a strong representation in politics. But the number of those who are qualified to take part in decision making up there are few. All is not lost though. With the numbers that we have, we can make in impact if we speak in one voice on August 9.
Women need to seize this opportunity that has presented itself. This is the closest we have come to power; the sooner we realise this the better.
The excitement about women leadership should not only excite us. We need to rally our male counterparts to believe in us and give us the chance to show that we are capable of leading this country at various political levels.
There has been a long-running maxim that women are their own worst enemies. It has been used many times especially when women fail to support one of their own. It was used in 1997 when more men voted for Charity Ngilu when she ran for president, it was used in 2013 when Karua for president. Both lost, with a handful women supporting them.
However, this is our time to rewrite this notion. Women it is a high time we realised that our reluctance to politically support fellow women will work against us because it will only supply fuel of male chauvinism.
The conversation about supporting women should start in our homes. We should convince men to vote for women.
Ms Czeda is a KTN news-anchor-cum reporter. bczeda@standardmedia.co.ke
