Women in Nyamira County told the National Gender and Equality Commission (NGEC) on Wednesday that campaign costs, party nomination processes and gendered attacks keep them out of elective office. 

The dialogue was led by Commissioner Caroline Lentupuru and brought together women across generations, including women with disabilities, as part of the Commission’s county engagements ahead of the 2027 General Election.

In the 2022 General Election none of Nyamira’s 26 non-reserved directly elected positions, comprising the Governor, the Senator, four constituency Members of Parliament and twenty ward representatives, was won by a woman.

BEFORE THE BALLOT 

Participants set out the prohibitive cost of campaigning, political party nomination processes that favour male candidates, limited access to property and campaign resources, gender-based violence and technology-facilitated abuse, and social norms that question women’s legitimacy as leaders. 

They said that where women do break through, their leadership attracts scrutiny, hostility and gendered attacks that male counterparts rarely face.

INSTITUTIONS IN THE ROOM Representatives of the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties and of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission joined the dialogue, bringing the institutions that shape the 2027 ballot into direct engagement with the women whose participation depends on the decisions those institutions take. 

At a media briefing led by Lentupuru, the Commission called on women and other Special Interest Groups to register as voters, participate peacefully in political processes, consider offering themselves as candidates for elective office and exercise their right to vote.

At the conclusion of the engagement participants adopted the women’s instrument of the declaration by Special Interest Groups on inclusive electoral preparations and participation ahead of the 2027 General Election. Signatories commit to register in large numbers, to field higher numbers of women for the seats available in 2027, and to demand that political parties finance their aspirants and reduce nomination fees. 

The Commission will track the declaration as the country moves towards 2027. The Commission said the full and meaningful participation of women and other Special Interest Groups is a measure of whether the country’s democracy represents all its people, and that where entire groups remain absent from elected office, the decisions that shape their lives are taken without them. 

The Commission had opened its Nyamira engagements the previous day with courtesy calls on the county government and the county administration.

The Commission called on political parties, electoral institutions, county governments and communities to act on the priorities raised in Nyamira.