A historic number of women in Ruto Cabinet still falls short of the promise

H.E President William Ruto and Cabinet Secretaries during Cabinet meeting at State House, Nairobi. FILE PHOTO | HIRAM OMONDI | NMG   

By MARILYN KAMURU More by this Author

President William Samoei Ruto has appointed a historic number of women to the

Cabinet. Article 152(1) of the Constitution defines Cabinet as including the President, Deputy President and Attorney-General as well as not less than 14 and not more than 22 Cabinet secretaries.

President Ruto’s Cabinet is composed of 25 people, of whom 18 are men and seven are women (72 percent men). This is in violation of Article 27(8) which provides that a public appointive body should not be dominated by a single gender and sets the constitutional ceiling as two-thirds or 66.7 percent.

We are witnessing a historic number of women in Cabinet (seven up from six in 2018), thanks to the multi-year advocacy of organisations like CREAW, CRAWN Trust and Katiba Institute as well as feminist campaigns such as #WeAre52pc.

However, we are also witnessing continued executive defiance when it comes to women’s rights and constitutional compliance.

For advocates of gender equality, this poses a challenge. Should we celebrate or complain? Isn’t it progress even if it is unconstitutional?

We can do both. For those who have been advocates of constitutional compliance and respect for women’s right to representation, it is a testament to our relentless advocacy that we have a historic number of women in Cabinet.

We have a record number of women in Cabinet because Kenyan women continue to demand our constitutional right to representation, through advocacy and strategic public interest litigation.

#WeAre52pc, a feminist collective, ran a successful multi-year online and offline campaign including social media, silent protests and petitions.

There was, for instance, the first petition to the Chief Justice on the dissolution of Parliament for refusal to enact the two-thirds legislation in 2017.

It was against this background of advocacy and complaint that the Chief Justice advised the President to dissolve Parliament in 2020. The campaign also put politicians on notice about the issues that mattered to women.

Kenya Kwanza (KK) had the most progressive campaign promises to women. They understood and capitalised on the political opportunity presented by the consistent constitutional violation of women’s rights.

They made bold promises, from a commitment to appoint a gender-equal cabinet to a promise to actualise the two-thirds gender rule within 12 months in office.

Unfortunately, although not unexpectedly, KK has got off to a less-than-stellar start by violating the first of these commitments.

A historic number of women still falls far short of the promised gender-equal Cabinet. It seems that unless women complain and campaign for their constitutional rights they will continue to remain a political opportunity to be exploited during campaign season and readily forgotten thereafter.

The writer is a lawyer.