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HOW TO GET A THIRD OF WOMEN ELECTED

Humanity is like a bird with its two wings -- the one is male, the other female. Unless bothwings are strong and impelled by some common force, the bird cannot fly heavenwards.

According to the spirit of this age, women must advance and fulfil their mission in all

departments of life, becoming equal to men. They must be on the same level as men and enjoyequal rights.BahaI llah (Founder of the BahaI movement).

The hullabaloo of the a-third gender rule is deafening but can be silenced if we look back at thereason - the WHY - it was necessary to have it entrenched in the constitution. It was a realization

that leaving out half of the population out of our political administrative and economicspheres was discriminative and wasteful. Kenya's womenfolk today are more empowered

educationally and possess knowledge and skills, and talents, which Kenyans would terribly err ifthey neglected to tap in the task of nation-building, Vision2030 and the Millennium

Development Goals.

However, as history would have it, the political arena has been a preserve of patriarchy and maledomination. In a conscientious society it puts demands on the power wielders to embraceaffirmative action to correct historical injustices. However, no one with a personal political

ambition -having waited for the elections for five years - will sacrifice his candidature to meetsome national statistic. It sounds like punishing the men leaders - for being male.

Now we are in a dilemma because we do not have a mechanism to ensure that our desire, so

passionately captured in our supreme document of governance, is actualized. The political partiesare tempted to revert to we-told-you-the constitution-was-not-good line, even though no single

Kenya specifically publicly objected to or cited the a-third gender rule as contentious. Onemight argue that the government has no obligation since it is the governed that elect their

representatives.....the government can only be tasked to ensure compliance in the administrativeappointments. That takes us to square 1.

To move on, Kenya must now embrace not the letter.....but the spirit of the gender rule, level the

political playing field and empower female candidates through clever affirmative action.

One, we must change our leadership model. Many Kenyans view politics as a war field - where

you annihilate your enemies. Violence and brutal force becomes the means to subdue the enemy.Where the "enemy" is a woman, epithets about her femaleness fly with abandon; and like it

happened in Meru, physical violence is unleashed on the person. Some of the celebrated femaleMPs in Kenya today survive (and thrive) through their ability to recruit and maintain a jeshi-la-

mama to counter their male contenders outfits. Women playing by mens rules will not do, notin a national scale anyway. Law enforcement must ensure no one escapes with physical or

verbal violence or breach of peace.

Secondly, campaigns period and timing should be structured to ensure safety . A mututho-approach to campaigns and a shorter campaign period would greatly level the field in terms of

time and money spent. Girls on average have less time to study and play than boys. As grown upwomen they spend more time doing reproductive work that is unmonetized, mostly around the

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home. For example, the contestants may be allowed only a limited number of rallies, say two,so that they can use alternative ways that are less confrontational, less expensive and non-time

consuming: but still enable selling of the candidates and party agenda.

Moving the General elections from December to August (under the new constitution) was wise:

away from the festivities and traditional initiation season where male contestants have moreaccess to the initiates and their warrior mode. Law enforcement should ensure such discourse isdevoid of violence and hate-speech.

Thirdly, the government should enforce the a-third gender rule in all party structures. It should

be mandatory for parties not just to have a third women as officials but FIELD a third femalecontestants in its total number of candidates presented for elections. Parties would also be

required to field in at least 30 % of the parliamentary senate and civic seats in the republic.

Fourth, civic education should target women voters and contestants, and spread out months prior

to the elections.

Lastly, since the incumbents are mostly well endowed and have in place well-oiled campaignmachinery, why not limit their terms to two terms, unless they want to vie for a different level

seat orthe presidency? This would create less competition for the many new comers.

Then if after all this we still do not attain the mark.the gap can be filled up with nominations.

Thuku wa Njuguna

Dagoretti

Thuku wa Njuguna is a Human Rights/Gender Justice activist, and Chairperson of Men forGender Equality Now (MEGEN).