Raila’s choice of Karua places Kenya on high global pedestal

Azimio La Umoja Presidential Candidate Raila Odinga with his running mate Martha Karua.

Azimio La Umoja Presidential Candidate Raila Odinga with his running mate Martha Karua at Around the Globe Deliverance Ministry in Pipeline, Nairobi on July 17, 2022.

Photo credit: Evans Habil | Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

  • Karua will assume office without the baggage of corruption that makes it difficult to jail friends.
  • Karua has also maintained a common touch and power did not seem to get to her head as it did many former civil society and human rights advocates.

There is no doubt that Raila Amolo Odinga is a prominent face of Kenya on the international stage.

After all, he is the African Union High Representative for Infrastructure Development.

It is, however, his choice of running mate that affirms the former Prime Minister’s global outlook and his desire to not only propel his country to where he is but also make Kenya an equal player on the world stage!

I look forward to the day President Odinga and Deputy President Martha Wangari Karua will meet behind closed doors to deliberate on the affairs of this great nation.

Two able leaders who have been in the trenches for decades fighting for justice and democracy.

The choice of Ms Karua has excited many locally and beyond Kenya’s borders.

The 65-year-old human rights lawyer, Narc-Kenya party leader, high-ranking four-term parliamentarian, former magistrate and former Cabinet minister wears many hats and has collected a lot of social capital that makes her name easily recognisable locally, regionally and internationally.

Ms Karua is the closest a local political leader has come to USA’s ever-green Democrat Nancy Pelosi.

Sir Winston Churchill is credited with uttering the dictum that courage is the highest of all virtues of (wo) man because it guarantees all the others.

Karua is known for many things, and courage comes out easily on the lips of those who have observed her career as a politician and activist for various causes for over three decades.

Her courage credentials are not just talking, but are imprinted in real-life actions, decisions and reactions in speaking truth to power in situations that would have petrified lesser mortals, and which always expanded the democratic space, political liberty and cultural boundaries.

This dynamic of her character first came out in the 1990s when she walked out on the powerful and dreaded President Daniel arap Moi.

This came after she was denied a slot to address a public event in her Gichugu Constituency, a move which she took for untenable humiliation. 

It was a sensational move that raised the then DP lawmaker’s public profile as a no-nonsense emerging leader who was not afraid to exercise her convictions.

Although Moi successor and then-DP chairman Mwai Kibaki must have celebrated Karua for standing up to his Kanu archrival, she unleashed the same treatment on Kibaki in 2009, when she resigned as Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister over integrity concerns in the appointment of High Court judges by Kibaki on the advice of then Chief Justice Evan Gicheru, and without her input.

The move caused the Kibaki administration considerable discomfort as it exposed shenanigans in judicial appointments, which tainted Kibaki’s clarion call for zero tolerance for corruption and respect for the rule of law.

Then, in 2011, during the burial of former Head of the Africa Independent Pentecostal Church of Africa, Bishop Samson Gaitho in Ruiru, Kiambu County, Karua would challenge Uhuru Kenyatta in President Kibaki’s presence to quit riding on power and instead face her in an open democratic contest to decide who would succeed Kibaki in 2012.

Favourite successor

An obviously peeved Kibaki, whose favourite successor was Uhuru, would take the mic and tell off Martha there and then, rebuking her for seeking to “elevate herself to be seen as a heroine”.

But she had already made her point!

On governance, it is remarkable that Karua was among the very few senior members of the Kibaki kitchen cabinet who were never tainted with corruption allegations or accusations.

She served as Water Development minister between 2003 and 2007.

By promising to appoint Karua as Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Raila demonstrated his public commitment to fighting endemic corruption.

Karua will assume office without the baggage of corruption that makes it difficult to jail friends who help politicians appropriate state resources for personal gain.

Karua has also maintained a common touch and power did not seem to get to her head as it did many former civil society and human rights advocates who found themselves in positions of state power under Kibaki and Uhuru.

Many got captured by “tenderpreneurs” and their names have constantly been featured in corruption investigation reports and court charge sheets.

She has remained a reliable and steadfast voice of reason in public pronouncements and positions.

These factors must have played a role in persuading Azimio la Umoja presidential flagbearer Raila to pick her as his running mate.

Women leadership

Beyond vote-hunting for Azimio, Karua’s burden of expectations extends beyond Kenya’s borders to the global women and girl-child empowerment movement, with multiple global frontiers.

By dint of ascending to the highly visible second-most powerful political position, she takes over the generational leadership baton from trailblazers who came before her.

She carries the local and global burden of articulating the cause of women empowerment and what women can do in high political office.

Women empowerment movements seek an extension of recognition and access to equal opportunity for women in all spheres and levels of society beyond tokenism.

Celebrated gender scholar Naila Kabeer has described the empowerment of women as a process of interrogating the entire gamut of social relations structure, which defines how various groups in society are positioned in terms of material (tangible) and intangible resources.

The excitement at the historic prospects of Karua being sworn in as Kenya’s first elected woman Deputy President was all too evident a week ago when women of all ages, races, social profiles and professions turned up to attend the One Million Women for Martha initiative.

In attendance to pitch their expectations on Karua were pioneering women leaders, top among them the indefatigable trailblazer, Dr Julia Ojiambo and celebrated educationist Edda Gachukia.

These older-generation ladies must have inspired and mentored Karua’s generation in their struggle for leadership positions in the public space.

It is expected that Karua will not only shape how Kenyans think about women in leadership, but she is also likely to be influenced by it as the demands and burdens of office become real, should Azimio emerge victorious in the August 9 General Election.

Mr Onsarigo is the Press Secretary, Raila Odinga Presidential Campaign. [email protected].