Beyond the ‘Remedial’ measures: Re-thinking ‘Normalization’ of women’s election as part of political experience in Kenya

Abstract

Normalization of women’s election is a noble target toward fulfilling the demands of international conventions amongst them the UDHR (1948) on gender and participatory democracy. It is a pathway that also fulfils the tenets of a functional democracy under various declarations. The adoption of the remedial measures and quotas in specific remain an acceptable strategy with respect to fast-tracking and strengthening such achievements with extant literature proving an average 20.9% women’s representation in parliament through quotas as of July, 2013. While the foundations of approach and progress so far remain philosophically sane, it is the thesis of this paper that such remedial measures might provide quick fixes without being socio-economically and politically tenable over long period of time. Borrowing widely from institutional based approaches used in post-revolution Egypt, Tunisia and contextually, the Kenya’s March 4^th 2013 general elections outcome, the paper advocates for gender-nuanced complementary approaches that seek a bottom-up strategy as to be able to dismantle the socio-cultural norms heavily anchored by patriarchy that have over the years played against the ‘electability’ of women in political offices within Kenya’s geopolitics. These complementary strategies are seen to be able to yield to the theories of equality of results and competitive equality but also remain culturally and economically tenable in the long run.

Key words: Participatory democracy, Remedial measures, Gender