When your spouse gets into politics
Malindi MP Aisha Jumwa.
They sign up to stay with their spouses for better or worse. But wives and husbands of politicians are making the ultimate sacrifices’ as their spouses vie for elective seats. From endless cooking at home, financing campaigns and late night meetings, it’s a busy season for the spouses but this is coming with its share of challenges.
Recently, Malindi MP Aisha Jumwa opened up on her experience as a successful politician with a failed marriage after her former husband demanded she renounces her political career.
Bringing to light the intricacies of balancing politics and family, the mother of three shared during an interview with NTV how her marriage crumbled at the time her political star was blossoming. She had chosen the latter.
“My ex-husband said he could not have a wife who was a politician,” she explained. “There is no way I could kill my career, so we divorced.”
Ms Winnie Mumbi Kimani, the wife of Molo MP Kuria Kimani and his Nakuru West counterpart Samuel Arama’s wife Florence, admitted having objected to their spouses’ political dreams when they first broke the news.
What first came to Mrs Arama’s mind were the negative portrayals of politicians.
Worsening the situation was her husband’s decision to use their savings to campaign, which did not augur well with Florence, making her to resist the move.
What made her change her mind and walk the journey with him?
“At first, I was not for it but days later, I witnessed what he was doing to the vulnerable people in Nakuru and Kisii. At the back of my mind, I told myself that if I become adamant in blocking him from vying, I might be blocking God’s manifestation,” she said.
The script was almost the same for Ms Winnie, who rejected her husband’s desire to run for Elburgon ward rep seat in the advent of devolution.
Even though she had started seeing signs as early as 2014 when the lawmakers started charity activities, she still was not ready for the news when her husband revealed his intention of vying for a parliamentary seat in 2017.
But she quickly realised that her husband was the proverbial “idea whose time had come” and embraced the conversation with an open mind while weighing all possible scenarios, which might come in their way.
Then there are those like Brigit Towett who come in and stoke the political fire of their spouses and propel them to the next level. Brigid is the wife of Sotik parliamentary aspirant, Dr Kipchumba Towett, who is the son of the late veteran politician Taita Towett.
“I pushed him to announce his bid,” said the bubbly wife.
“He ran unsuccessfully in 2017 and we had agreed he would go at it in 2022. Looking at the electoral timelines, I told him “you’re getting late and timing in politics is of essence,” she explained.
Herself a radical strategist who served as a personal assistant to the late Bomet Governor Joyce Laboso, marrying into a political family can be likened to fish thriving in water.
Brigid categorises her husband as a manager than a politician, which is easy to understand his indulgence in his current work as the Agriculture executive at Bomet County.
Having jolted him about his pending dream to serve Sotik in parliament, they retreated to talk about it. She called the network she had established while campaigning for Dr Laboso as the Sotik MP and the spirit kicked in like it never left.
Brigid seems to have signed herself up for more than just the traditional roles, where wives of politicians smile admiringly like a prop in campaign materials and rallies.
Just like Hillary Clinton was seen to have been uncharacteristically active and ambitious during the husband’s presidency as compared to any other typical political spouse, Brigid has turned herself Dr Kipchumba’s chief campaigner, greatest moral supporter, mobiliser and strategist on conquering new grounds.
So enthusiastic is she about selling his policies that the electorate teasingly ask her to also seek some electoral seat someday.
With evolving gender dynamics in the governance sphere, today there are more female candidates requiring their husbands’ unequivocal support to wade the political waters that are often muddier for women than men.
Mr Joel Kemei is an embodiment of what every female aspirant would wish for in a “political husband”.
Besides allowing his wife, Beatrice Kemei, to run for the position of Woman rep in 2017, he became her biggest cheerleader, her defender and therapist from the stressful nature of game.
The human resource consultant recalls the very evening the wife approached him, seeking his blessings to vie.
“When she told me, I wasn’t surprised because she has the passion, capacity and network. Most importantly, she had an agenda, something to offer the people. My concern was not her ability but the logistics,” said Mr Kemei.
He said he didn’t find much difference between her wife joining politics and her background requiring her to traverse Kericho County, helping the less fortunate through an NGO.
So they held a family meeting in which she was given every blessing.
“When I married her, I promised to stand with her during all times and I have kept my word. I am actually enjoying the game (politics) but from the periphery. She has to run her show,” said Mr Kemei.
“I give her moral, financial and every other kind of support. When she comes home and doesn’t find peace, where else will she run to?” he posed.
Despite losing narrowly in 2017, he never deterred her from continuing with her grassroots work as the rest of the family remained in Nairobi.
She combs through the remotest of the villages in Kericho, but also knows when to return home. It’s all about balancing, the husband says.
“I have allowed her to be away. I also represent her in some functions. All our children are aligned,” Mr Kemei said noting that the freedom she gives the wife is the best demonstration of gender equality that the world yearns for.
There’s no denying, however, that the usual life matrixes have to change by a wide margin when a spouse joins politics.
From something as mundane as planning a meal, which will need additional cups of water to the cooking pot to feed the electorate coming home to share their joy or plight with upcoming mheshimiwa, to receiving countless invites to fundraisers.
There has to be a decision to leave open the gates from early in the day to late in the night. Besides the couple supporting each other in the lengthy hours on the campaign trail, there has to be serious budgeting to factor in and the running of the family.
Even attending annual holidays at the Coast becomes a subject to whether there’s a function in their locality which would be politically detrimental to skip.
Events of the party leader or regional kingpin are particularly sensitive as they, by and large, dictate an aspirant’s standing.
The changes can best be explained by Winny Kimani and Florence Arama, who have gone full circle in the experience.
“When Prof George Saitoti died in 2012, we hosted people from the entire constituency and my husband just wanted to ask them if he could be their MP. This has become my daily life to date. Nowadays, I cook intensively on Saturday and Sunday,” Mrs Arama said, noting that she at times has to interfere with her church schedules.
When the husband is away, she completely runs his political affairs, and even listens to the needs of the electorate and helps whenever she can while referring the ones she cannot handle to him.
“We have an office at home and when Mheshimiwa is away, perhaps outside the country, I attend to all the visitors on his behalf,” she said.
Mrs Kimani noted that being a wife to a politician comes with different responsibilities that saw her ‘redesign’ her family roles and chores to accommodate interests of the electorate, including cooking for visitors and campaign team.
And she has come to appreciate the fact that privacy is a fallacy when one is a public figure.
“I realised that by being an MP’s spouse, your life becomes public in every definition of the word. I had to adjust certain fundamental aspects of our lives to accommodate the new life,” she said.
From being fearful of political stereotyping to being comfortable accompanying the husband to public functions, she is now more comfortable with the exposure than when she started.
She reveals that being a spouse of a leader needs a lot of sacrifices. For instance, she has had to play the role of a father and mother at the same time when the lawmaker is not around.
“One of the biggest sacrifices I have had to make is playing the role of a husband and a wife to my lovely children when he is in the constituency serving his people. The other sacrifice is to open up our rather confined family space to include many more others whom I call ‘my larger Molo family’,” Ms Kimani said.
