Defence Cabinet Secretary nominee Soipan Tuya during an event in Nairobi on February 8, 2024.
Roselinda Soipan Tuya never considered herself made for politics. In fact, she reviled politics early in her life despite being born in a political family with her father serving as an MP and mother as a councillor.
But it is politics that has catapulted the 44-year-old to a cusp away from being the “most powerful” woman in the country with MPs the only obstacle standing in her way.
Ms Tuya is the nominee for the Defence docket, swapping places with Aden Duale (Environment), following a last-minute change by President William Ruto to his cabinet secretaries’ nominee list presented to Parliament for vetting.
Should she be approved, the renowned advocate will join a hallowed list of few women who have occupied the powerful Defence ministry. Only Monica Juma and Raychelle Omamo can boast of having bestrode the dreaded steps of DoD.
The University of Washington alumna will be the third woman to hold the position under the 2010 Constitution.
Until last month, Ms Tuya was the Environment CS – a role she held since 2022 succeeding Keriako Tobiko. But a move by President Ruto to dismiss his Cabinet now sees the former Narok Woman Representative toying with an enviable destiny.
The Environment CS position saw her become the first Maa woman to be named in Cabinet since independence.
The two-term Narok Woman Rep comes from a political family with her father, Samson Ole Tuya, being a former two-term Narok South MP while her mother served as a councillor in the defunct Narok County Council.
But for her, politics was not coursing in her blood as she preferred the life of an advocate to being a politician.
Overtures in 2011 to have her throw her heart in the running for Narok Woman Representative position, at the advent of devolution, was turned down. However, fate had other ideas for the then 31-year-old.
The University of Nairobi alumna found herself thrust into murky political waters, heels deep, two months to the 2013 elections following the death of Patricia Parsitau.
Despite the late entrance and having to fill such big shoes of the late Parsitau, she emerged victorious garnering the highest number of votes in the county in that election securing more than 140,000 votes.
She ran under the United Republican Party associated with Dr Ruto and would defend the seat in the next election in 2017 on a Jubilee Party ticket.
During her second term in Parliament, Ms Tuya served as the chairperson of the Speakers Panel where she was among the chosen few MPs who had an opportunity to chair National Assembly proceedings in the absence of the Speaker and his Deputy.
But her star began shining even in her first term where she was selected to chair the crucial Implementation committee tasked with forming a connection between Parliament and the Executive with its main role being to ensure that what has been discussed in parliament was implemented by the Executive.
She also served as a member of the Defence and Foreign Relations Committee, Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs and Procedure and House Rules Committee.
As a woman who has never been shy from daring where few women would, she dumped the Jubilee party to move with Dr Ruto to the United Democratic Alliance (UDA).
Ms Tuya would later announce she will not defend her seat in the August 2022 elections but will gun for the gubernatorial seat.
She was to take on Narok West MP Gabriel Tongoyo and former Labour CAS Patrick Ntutu, now the governor, for the UDA party ticket.
It took the intervention of President Ruto for her to shelve her gubernatorial ambitions in favour of Ntutu.
And as sure as the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, Ms Tuya was nominated by the UDA party in the Senate before later resigning to take over as Environment CS.
