Women's View on Line News
Summary of story from AlJazeera, April 10, 2011Martha Karua, Kenya’s erstwhile justice minister, fears nothing and no one.
A previously staunch supporter of the current president Mwai Kibaki, she will challenge all comers for the presidency at the head of her own party next year.
The veteran politician has been around since the heyday of Daniel Arap Moi, who ruled Kenya from 1978 until 2002, and was an active part of the National Rainbow Coalition that forced the establishment of multi-party democracy and ultimately defeated the Kenya African National Union (KANU) that had utterly – and coercively – dominated politics since independence.
From a tender age, Karua worked hard to overcome her disadvantages growing up as a girl in Kenya’s Central Province in the 1960s.
She did well in school, trained as a lawyer at the University of Nairobi, graduating in 1980, and after a year of postgraduate study became an advocate of the High Court of Kenya (see WVoN story).
She joined the judiciary and worked as a magistrate from 1981 to 1987, when she left to set up a private practise.
“I realised I would be able to champion women’s ideas and democratic ideals only if I was not working for the government.
“I joined other opposition politicians to force Moi to allow multi-party democracy after repealing Section 2A of the constitution, which made the Kenya African National Union the only political party in Kenya”, Karua says.
But she resigned her ministerial position in frustration in mid-2009 when she realised that impunity and corruption were still the order of the day and joined the National Rainbow Coalition Kenya party, of which she is now leader.
“I have been on the frontline fighting for women’s issues and their participation in the running of this country.
“Women make up the majority of voters and I hope they will be able to vote for me, not because I am one of them but because of what I can do as a person and they should also look at my track record.”
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