Don't wait until 2027: Key lessons for women seeking political office

By  Moraa Obiria

Senior Gender Journalist

What you need to know:

• Ruth Odinga and Beatrice Elachi have a message for women aspirants: don’t overlook lower seats, don’t let social media distract you, and don’t wait until nomination season to organise.

When Ruth Odinga won ODM nomination for the Kisumu gubernatorial race in 2013, she appeared to be on course to become one of the few women to govern a county in Kenya.

Instead, she was asked to step aside in favour of Jack Ranguma.

According to Ruth, it took the intervention of veteran women leaders Zipporah Kittony and the late Phoebe Asiyo, who spoke to her brother, the late Raila Odinga, then ODM leader and presidential candidate, for her to be offered the deputy governor position.

Rather than walking away, she remained in the political scene.

In 2022, she successfully contested the Kisumu Woman Representative seat, a position she said helped her build her political profile while keeping alive her ambition of leading the county. In June 2026, she launched her bid for the Kisumu governorship, returning to the race she had hoped to run more than a decade earlier.

Overlooking opportunities

Looking back, Ruth said one of the biggest mistakes women aspirants make is overlooking opportunities that could help them build experience and visibility while pursuing higher office.

Speaking at a meeting organised by the National Gender and Equality Commission in Nairobi earlier this month, and attended by women legislators and aspirants, she urged women not to wait until election campaigns gathered momentum to begin their political journeys.

“I'm telling you ladies, whatever you have, if you have the courage, come out. Don't say you want to become a governor when you don't want to start as an MCA,” she said.

Ruth emphasised that her current legislative position has given her the platform to strengthen her political standing.

“I am one of the best women representatives. I work hard, and that has helped me build myself,” she said.

According to the latest Infotrak ratings, Ruth is tied with Kisii Woman Representative Dorice Aburi as the third-best-performing woman representative in Nyanza region, with a rating of 49 per cent.

Ruth also reflected on her tenure as Kisumu deputy governor, saying she challenged ideas she believed would not benefit the county.

“When I was a deputy governor, I was a very good one. I fought my governor's ideas to ensure that Kisumu was changing,” she said.

Allowing social media distraction

For Beatrice Elachi, one mistake women aspirants should avoid is waiting until nomination season to begin building support within their political parties.

Beatrice won the Dagoretti North parliamentary seat in 2022 on a direct ODM nomination ticket, becoming the only woman elected from Nairobi County's 17 constituencies.

Beatrice served as secretary-general of the Alliance Party of Kenya from 2010 to 2013. 

The party, which was then allied to the Jubilee coalition, nominated her to the Senate in 2013, making her the first woman to serve as Senate Majority Chief Whip, a position she held until 2017.

She later served as Speaker of the Nairobi City County Assembly from 2017 to 2021 before joining ODM, under whose ticket she was elected to the National Assembly the following year.

Speaking at the same event, she warned that women candidates would face attacks on social media.

But she cautioned them against allowing online criticism to distract them from organising on the ground.

“They will attack you. They will bring anything. They will say anything. But focus on the ground,” she said.

She reminded the aspirants that a candidate’s real political strength lies not in social media, but in the relationships built with voters and party supporters

Relying on competitors’ support base

Beatrice challenged the aspirants to begin strengthening their party support bases well before nominations.

“Go and look at your register for your party. How many people have you registered?” She asked.

According to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission's election operations plan, party primaries are scheduled to be held between March 17 and April 10, 2027.

Beatrice was emphatic that women who recruited party members early would place themselves in a stronger position to secure nomination tickets.

She warned women against relying on others to mobilise supporters on their behalf.

“Don't wait for someone else to register for you and then you go with him in that nomination, atakushinda asubuhi(By morning they will have defeated you),” she said.

 Running without a budget

However, campaign financing is a major challenge for women aspirants.

Winfred Kimeu, programmes lead at the Community Advocacy and Awareness Trust which promotes women's participation in leadership, said one of the strategies they share with aspirants is developing a campaign strategy backed by a budget.

“This helps them set aside adequate funds for different campaign activities and avoid running short of money during the campaign period,” she said.

She said when funding is available, they would support women seeking parliamentary, senatorial and gubernatorial seats with campaign materials.

“These include posters, T-shirts, lessons and caps, while those seeking higher positions may receive billboards if the budget allows,” she said.

Now with funding cuts, she said, such support is impossible.

Winfred noted that women generally spent more than men campaigning for similar positions because they required more security and often invested more heavily in branding.

A study by Westminster Foundation for Democracy, Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy and Mzalendo Trust on the cost of politics in Kenya found that women who sought parliamentary seats in the 2017 General Election spent Sh12.1 million in party primaries, compared with Sh7.5 million spent by men.

The women who secured party tickets spent Sh11.5 million during campaigns, compared with Sh9.5 million spent by men. Yet only 23 women were elected out of a total of 131 candidates.

She added that some women delayed deciding which elective seats they wanted to contest, unlike their male counterparts, who often began laying the groundwork much earlier.

“Men start building visibility through social media and attending community events long before formally declaring their candidatures,” she said.

“By the time the women decide which seat to contest, party coalitions, agreements and political positions have already been negotiated, putting them at a disadvantage.”