Past encounters that show Martha Karua as a stickler for law and the truth

Martha Karua leaving a court room with Raila Odinga, James Orengo and other political leaders, October 1991. [File, Standard]

So what is it Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Alliance presidential running-mate Martha Karua has done to change the conversation ahead of the August 9 voting day?

Some say she has shifted focus from principal contenders, Deputy President William Ruto and ODM leader Raila Odinga, to herself and the running-mate on the other side, Rigathi Gachagua. Others say it is the gender, integrity or civil rights crusader factor that is a game-changer. Well, the jury is out until results start streaming in.

I first met Karua during 1992 election campaigns. I was engaged by a media consultancy handling Kenneth Matiba’s presidential bid and was involved in a survey on how Mount Kenya region was likely to vote in that election. In central Kenya, Matiba and Mwai Kibaki were the two horses to watch. While Murang’a and Nyeri were sewn up for Matiba and Kibaki, respectively, Kiambu, Kirinyaga and Nyandarua were a toss-up.

I was dispatched to ‘feel the ground’ in Kirinyaga. My first stop was Gichugu Constituency where Karua was vying on Kibaki party ticket (DP) against incumbent Geoffrey Kareithi, an influential former Head of the Civil Service who was in the Matiba party, Ford Asili. Euphoria was that Kareithi would make mincemeat of the greenhorn and youthful Karua. However, the ground shifted in the last few weeks. I filed a report on my findings, much as my bosses doubted me. The election results vindicated me when Karua, Kibaki and other DP candidates swept the board in Kirinyaga.

Phone call

My second interaction with Karua was a telephone conversation two years later. I was news editor with then People weekly newspaper owned by the Matiba family. Karua had spoken to one of our directors requesting her relative be considered if there was an opening for a job. The director gave her the impression there was one and told her to ask the relative to see me. He came and I confirmed he had qualifications for the job he was looking for. However, I was frank with him that the vacancy our director had in mind was in the anticipated People daily newspaper not in the weekly edition. I advised he leave his CV with us so that he could be contacted when time came.

That being different from what the company director had implied to Karua, she telephoned me for clarification. I told her the actual position. She appreciated that I was honest with her and remarked with a light touch: “Thanks, Kamau. Your director is a politician and politicians have tendency to give sugar-coated version of things!” The People daily finally came, but four years later and after Karua’s relative had moved on to other pursuits.

IPPG reforms

My third encounter with Karua came in the countdown to the 1997 election. The country was in turmoil. The civil society and opposition parties insisted on boycotting the elections until a new Constitution was in place. The Kanu government had said ‘no way’ and both sides dug deeper.

In Parliament, the opposition with James Orengo acting like Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar nearly blocked reading of that year’s Budget estimates by Finance Minister Musalia Mudavadi as pensive President Daniel arap Moi sat in the chamber. It was worse in the streets a few days later when protesting mobs confronted police and elite GSU stormed Nairobi’s All Saints Cathedral to flush out demonstrators. In the process they clobbered and badly injured outspoken PCEA clergyman, Rev Timothy Njoya.

In the prevailing state of chaos, 14 MPs drawn from the ruling party and different opposition parties met and agreed to a middle-ground where there would be minimum reforms in the short period to the election, but overhaul of the Constitution be revisited immediately after the election. Karua was in the group of 14.

The civil society and a section of the opposition, however, vehemently opposed the middle-ground position just as did hard-liners in the ruling party. Team Karua prevailed when they convinced majority colleagues to sign up for what came to be known as the Inter-Party Parliamentary Group (IPPG). Reform package negotiated and passed in the IPPG entailed automatic appointment to the electoral commission nominees of the opposition political parties on basis of their strength in Parliament, scrapping of requirement to have political rallies licensed by the provincial administration, and that State broadcaster KBC give proportionate coverage to all political players.

Martha Karua, January 26, 1993. [File, Standard]

I secured a media interview with Karua for insights on why she supported the IPPG initiative against wishes of the civil society and section of the opposition. We met at Parliament’s cafeteria. She explained her stand with analogy of war situation where tactical retreat is not surrender, but strategy to plan afresh and advance.

She reasoned that since President Moi would be in his last term after 1997, boycotting election could only prolong his stay in office because overhauling and enacting a new Constitution certainly wouldn’t be possible in the short time before elections.

“Why not have what is possible within the available time, expand the democratic space but earnestly pick it up from there immediately after the elections?” she argued.

In IPPG she also saw another milestone not clear to many at the time. She told me: “Look, for the first time we have in IPPG progressive minds in the ruling party and those from different opposition parties coming together on a unity of purpose to change our country for better. It is a very good sign as we head to 2002 transition.”

Sure enough come 2002 election, IPPG experiment was reproduced in a mega way when progressives and rebels in Kanu led by Raila Odinga on one hand, and the opposition alliance led by Mwai Kibaki came together under the Narc umbrella and romped home to victory.

The last interaction with Karua didn’t directly have something to do with me. It was about my friend who published a newspaper in the category politely referred to as “alternative” media, but elsewhere known as the gutter press. Today that space is flooded by bloggers with morals of an alley cat. Sometime in 2004 my friend published an article that was libelous to Karua, who at the time was Cabinet Minister for Water and Irrigation.

In her private capacity she demanded retraction and apology. My buddy journalist declined and thought he could test her resolve. A friend who was an assistant minister in the Kibaki government and close to Karua tried to convince him to apologise to her but he played hide-and-seek. It made Karua decide to play hard ball as well and she went ahead with private prosecution. My friend was found guilty and sentenced to one year in jail or half a million shilling fine. He couldn’t pay. So he was put in the ‘gourd’ as people from where I come from would say.

Fortunately, after three months came the routine presidential pardon for prisoners serving below a year. He was in the list to be set free. There was a little hiccup, however. Prison authorities weren’t sure what to do with an inmate whose matter personally touched on a Cabinet minister.

They consulted. Karua was forthright and told them: “The law is clear. That inmate is in the category that qualifies to be set free. Do what the law requires of you!” She added: “When it comes to obeying the rule of law there is nothing personal!” My buddy journalist was set free without further ado.

That is the story of Martha Wangari wa Karua, where I can tell it.