Kenya

Traditional belief and practice that women should not hold positions of power was the ultimate hurdle for female aspirants in the General Election last month.

In the Coast, of all the women who declared interest in different competitive elections, only former Cabinet minister Naomi Shaban was elected to represent Taveta in the National Assembly after beating her closest rival, former MP Basil Criticos, by only 109 votes.

In all, men won 25 of the 26 parliamentary seats in the Coast region.

While Kenya’s disputed presidential race continues to take center stage, another race could radically transform politics at the local level: the election of women’s representatives in each of the 47 newly created counties across Kenya. As a result of constitutional provisions, more women will be represented in Kenya’s Parliament than ever before, a step forward for representative equality in a traditionally patriarchal society where political engagement is dominated by men.

Centre for Multi-Party Democracy executive director Njeri Kabeberi is concerned that even with the guaranteed 47 women representatives, Kenya has not met the constitutional threshold of no more than two-thirds of public office holders being of the same gender.

(We invite our users to the read the full article published March 23 2013)

"So far according to our estimates, it is about seven per cent of women for the senate, seven per cent for the county assembly, and only three per cent for women governor candidates," said Ms Monika Izydorczyk, a member of the EU observer mission.

The number of female candidates is easily the highest in Kenya’s electoral history and the women are banking on voters to give them a chance to beef up their num