Pruline Lenkupae: This is why I want to be first elected woman MCA in Samburu
MCA aspirant Pruline Lenkupae in Barsaloi village, Samburu North, on August 22, 2024. She will be vying for the Angata Nanyekie ward representative. The area is notorious for banditry attacks.
What you need to know:
- Pruline says she plans to improve the transport network, increase water connectivity, and promote girls’ education through bursaries.
- She also seeks to source funds that will help give women grants to venture into business and farming, and empower them economically.
It is about 1.30pm when we depart Maralal town to Barsaloi village, Samburu North, about 50 kilometres away.
We drive through a rough road that cuts through forested areas. The place is sparsely populated and it takes long before one can sight a home or a shopping centre.
What occasionally catches the attention of our eyes are large herds of cattle and grazing goats. This area is known as a livestock rearing hub.
The road is soggy and slippery. Samburu is experiencing a rainy cold season, much to the shock of residents. The area is normally dry at this time of the year.
After about a two-hour drive, we reach the Barsaloi shopping centre. A few kilometres from here is a gathering, a mix of people of all ages, young and old, listening attentively to a young woman. The young woman, Pruline Lenkupae is the speaker.
Pruline is on a meet-the-people tour after she recently announced her bid for the representative of Angata Nanyekie ward, whose member of the county assembly (MCA) Paul Leshimpiro was shot dead several months ago by suspected bandits.
A by-election has not been scheduled, but campaigns are underway.
This ward is deep inside the Suguta Valley, which, for many years, has borne the brunt of banditry attacks. After she is done addressing the people, we pull her aside for an interview. Pruline shares her vision for the ward, if elected.
“The area, no doubt, needs fresh leadership that’s responsive to and responsible for the needs of the people. Certainly, I will offer that kind of leadership. That is why I have thrown my hat in the ring,” Pruline says.
Part of her vision is to improve the transport network, increase water connectivity, and promote girls’ education through bursaries. She also seeks to source funds that will help give women grants to venture into business and farming, and empower them economically.
Being a woman and running for a political seat in a volatile area marred by insecurity for years, Pruline says her experience has not been a bed of roses.
“Being my first time to stand for an election, I am finding it a bit challenging. I lack the necessary resources to mount a formidable campaign, hence I have to depend on well-wishers. The ward is vast; movement and transport has been a big challenge that requires a lot of money, which I lack.”
Before she entered the fray, Pruline says she had to first sit with her husband and explain her intention. “I was elated after he agreed to let me run for the seat and actually promised to support and campaign for me. The situation on the ground is changing and men are coming out to support women in political participation.”
Samburu is one of the most patriarchal communities in Kenya. Men still control the culture, power and resources, much to the detriment of women.
UN Women project
Pruline says that being a woman makes it difficult as she sometimes fears going out to campaign and meet with voters. She is among the women receiving support from UN Women through a project aimed at enhancing their political participation and leadership.
The project, dubbed “Expanding Spaces for Women Political Participation in Kenya,” is spearheaded by Uraia Trust with the support of UN Women and funding from Global Affairs Canada. It seeks to enhance the capacity of women leaders and create an enabling environment for them to engage in politics and governance freely and effectively.
Male champions, who are allies of the gender agenda, have been beneficiaries of capacity building offered by Uraia Trust and UN Women. They create awareness of why it is important to involve women in political participation and leadership.
Capacity building is instrumental in changing the mindset and perception of men in patriarchal communities that resist women’s leadership. The initiative is being implemented in seven counties: Samburu, Kisii, Homa Bay, Embu, Kericho, Wajir, and Kajiado.
“The training I have received through this project has been incredible. Women have been taught strategies of winning elections, what to do and what not to do on the campaign trail. This, I believe, will help many more women assume leadership positions through the ballot.
“It is important to involve women in our community in leadership. They form part of the majority and it will be unfair to sideline them. To ensure inclusive development, women need to be at the decision-making table.”
Outgoing UN Women Country Representative Anna Mutavati says the project is important as it seeks to increase the number of women in political participation. Ms Mutavati says having women in leadership and governance is critical as there can never be a democracy without their voice.
“Kenya has made a lot of progress in coming up with laws that support women, but their political participation remains the greatest challenge. Parliament, political parties and other relevant bodies need to come up and support this cause. By being more than half the population, women need to be at the decision-making table to inform inclusive budgeting and development,” Ms Mutavati says.
She notes that some of the reasons that make women shy away from offering their candidature in elections is the cost of elections in Kenya – which is expensive.
“The biggest intervention that can be made is to put in place a law that caps election financing. The expensive elections in Kenya just distort the playing field and make women unable to compete fairly as they do not have the money.”
Ms Mutavati is happy that courtesy of the project, women leaders have increased in all cadres. Currently, there are seven women governors from three in 2017. The number of women MPs also increased from 23 in 2017 to 29 in 2022, as did the number of elected women MCAs.
In 2022, the project played a critical role in ensuring there was no political violence targeting women candidates and making them chicken out of contests, Ms Mutavati notes.
She attributes this to a robust civic education that communicated to Kenyans that women needed to be at the decision-making table, hence the need to seek leadership positions.
Janine Cocker, the head of Development Cooperation at the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi, says Kenya has a progressive constitution that supports gender equality.
Janine, whose work covers Kenya, Somalia, Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi, says Global Affairs Canada has had a long-standing partnership with UN Women to enhance gender equality with the project being an example.
She terms the impact of the project impressive going by the election of more women leaders in 2022 than in 2017. “There has been an increase of women leadership at the national and county levels. We saw an increase of women governors from three in 2017 to seven in 2022 and an increase in the number of women MPs. We also have three women senators. A robust teamwork helped yield these wonderful results. Women need to be at the decision-making table,” Ms Cocker says in an interview.
She notes that the project also helped ensure that women participated in peaceful elections in 2022, as no cases of violence were reported.
“We need to get rid of barriers that make women shy from leadership positions. The cost of elections needs to be dealt with. Women also need to be made economically viable through interventions.”
Ms Cocker says as Kenya gets closer to 2027, there is a need to project women as powerful aspirants and to recognise them as formidable.
John Leng’erded, the Uraia Trust Samburu County coordinator, says the project has helped to build the capacity of women nurturing political ambitions. He adds that the ground is slowly encouraging the community to accept women’s leadership.
“The people here are realising that women can make good leaders and we are more likely to see women in the county get into leadership positions.”
Mr Leng’erded called on women with political ambitions not to shy away from offering themselves for leadership positions when elections are called.
And as we depart back to Maralal town for the night, Pruline is optimistic that when the by-election is held, she will make history as the first female MCA in Samburu County.
All the 15 wards in the county are represented by men. Her message to the locals is to believe in her, saying she has what it takes to lead them for the remainder of the term.
