The Gender Dimension of Electoral Politics in Kenya

Abstract

Women in politics - is there a difference? Would they fare differently compared to men? Women are socialized in a different way. They have the responsibility for the children; cannot run away and leave them behind as men sometimes do. They handle a great part of the traditional agriculture and by this, they are a very important and stable economic factor not only for their families but for the whole country. Being bound to so much responsibility, women are used to finding solutions for their day-to-day problems. Therefore, they more often than not are willing to look for compromises and pragmatic solutions. The . social role the society and tradition has given to women in Kenya forms a . 'W : different type of experience and this experience creates a different type of social behavior. So, there is a difference: women develop a different style of policy which improves the democratic approach in the political culture of the country. That is why more women should be in politics and play an active part in the political life of Kenya. Because of this, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) supports a number of projects, all of which aim at increasing the number of women in Kenyan politics or to strengthen the awareness of gender aspects in national policy. This aim is defined regardless to the political party affiliation each woman might have. Together with the National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW), FES has developed a program which is to train candidates who apply for a seat in the National Assembly in order to help them to increase their chances in getting their party nomination and winning the parliamentary seat against possible male candidates. The goal of this project is to increase the number of women parliamentarians after the next election compared to the present legislative period and by this to have a more gender sensitive parliament. It will be easy to judge the effect of this project: if in the next National Assembly the number of women MPs is higher than this time, it will at least have had a part in this improvement. NCSW and FES are convinced that an increased number of women members of parliament will be for the benefit of politics in Kenya. Not only with respect to the gender sensitivity but also to the style of the political culture which then should be more issue-oriented and show less personal conflicts.