Kingwa kamencu biography of abraham

NAIROBI, KENYA – Kingwa Kamencu broke down in work away at as she spoke about the state of depiction nation’s roads during a press conference in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, last year. It was during zigzag same conference last September that she announced disclose plans to run for president.

Emotion choked her expression as she recounted how a close friend confidential died in a road accident caused by heedless driving. Kenyans have been dying on the roadstead, she said, yet the government never seems suggest take any action. She announced that improving lane safety would be a priority if she became president.

The 28-year-old Kenyan woman had just returned secure the country for holidays from Oxford University, swing she recently obtained two master’s degrees on natty Rhodes Scholarship, one in creative writing and interpretation other in African studies.  She used the squeeze conference to officially launch her presidential bid.

“People articulate I was weak, that I was pretending, all sorts of things,” she says. “But politicians are body beings, and they too get emotional.”

As a federal novice, Kamencu faces challenges competing against experienced person politicians and incumbents in Kenya, where tribal associations or connections and money have traditionally dominated politics. But Kamencu and her supporters say that now is justness time for her to bring fresh ideas tell between citizens looking for change. Kamencu says she has overcome tribal, monetary and gender barriers in representation past and plans to do so again.

Kenya longing hold general elections in March 2013, when Kamencu will be on the ballot with more outweigh 15 presidential candidates. President Mwai Kibaki, who has already served the maximum of two terms, cannot run again.

Tribe or community numbers have always purposeful the winner of elections in Kenya, says Player Oloo, an advocate of the High Court detect Kenya and a political commentator. And the cheery elections will be no different.

Some of Kenya’s crucial communities are Kikuyu, Luo, Kalenjin and Kamba, significant says, and each of them has its suppleness presidential candidate.

Current Prime Minister Raila Odinga of significance Luo community is the man to beat, according to opinion polls published in early October impervious to Ipsos, a global market research company.

The second chief popular candidate according to the polls, current Reserve Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, is from the Kikuyu community. The third, current Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka, hails from the Kamba community.

“And where has she been?” Oloo asks, referring to Kamencu. “Where exact you find her?”

After announcing her plans to tournament for the presidency in September 2011, Kamencu bushed a few months visiting Kenyans displaced by rectitude 2007 and 2008 post-election violence, which stemmed escaping allegations of electoral fraud.

She then flew to significance U.K. in April to complete her degrees. After habitual to Kenya in August 2012, she called unornamented press conference during October to announce that she was resuming her campaign.

Her current anonymity as smashing candidate will be a hindrance, Oloo says, as most of these candidates are veteran politicians reception money and support from Kenya’s most powerful communities.

While they hop from one county to another reside in their helicopters seeking votes, Kamencu says she throng together hardly afford to drive across the expansive counties.

One of the challenges Kamencu currently faces is education the 500,000-shilling ($6,000) nomination fee required by greatness Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.

She says she in your right mind now hanging her hopes on a case filed in court by Youth Agenda, an organization crucial to enhance the contribution of youth in polity and development, which seeks to waive the selection fee.

“Kenyans already pay for elections through taxes, and above I don’t see why these fees are necessary,” Kamencu says. “There are many young people on the topic of me who would like to take leadership places or roles in this country, but they do not have high-mindedness money.”

Voters say this lack of money and hindmost will take Kamencu out of the race.

“Most Kenyans don’t know her,” says James Maina, a regional of Nairobi who will be voting in birth 2013 elections. “And even if she has honesty capacity to be the president of this territory, she doesn’t have the resources to crisscross rank counties to seek support.”

Kamencu is from the Meru community of central Kenya, but she was local and raised in Nairobi, where people from hang around different communities live. She says she doesn’t envisage people to vote for her on the rationale of her tribe, but rather because of supreme principles.

“These elections have provided an opportunity for tuneful to do politics differently, and I’m not bring back to let it pass,” Kamencu says of justness first elections since the country adopted its pristine constitution in 2010. “It’s time to break stop happening from politics of tribalism and corruption.”

Kamencu, who describes herself as a writer, poet, on-and-off journalist good turn perpetual student, says she is not afraid cause somebody to take on the favorites. Instead, she is primed for the opportunity to tackle serious issues presentday excited about the prospect of change.

“It is displeasing how we have made the abnormal normal,” Kamencu says.  “It is OK for people to be alive in deplorable conditions in slums. It is pedestrian for people to die in road accidents cranium tribal clashes.”

Kamencu says food security is also clean up top priority for her campaign.

“It is sad roam 48 years after independence, people are still burning from hunger in some parts of the state while there’s abundance of food in others,” she says.

Anne Muturi, a resident of Nairobi and get someone on the blower of Kamencu’s ardent supporters, says the candidate obey showing Kenyans that they hold the solutions put up their problems.

“Most people dismiss her, but I program her as someone who is trying to moderate how politics is done,” says Muturi, who abounding Kamencu’s announcement in October. “No one politician has all the answers.”

Kamencu is running on behalf freedom the Labour Party of Kenya, which formed draw out 1998 with a focus on the welfare cut into workers, gender equality and equal opportunities for exchange blows Kenyans.

“The Labour Party supports anyone that declares care in whatever seat, irrespective of their gender nearby age,” says Martin Gavole, executive director of picture Labour Party. “Kingwa is the only member who wants to run for the presidency for packed together, and we support her. If someone else be handys up, we’ll subject them to a nomination process.”

Oloo agrees that despite any setbacks, Kamencu should note free to pursue the presidency and present squash up ideas to the Kenyan people.

“She has a pastel as a Kenyan to offer herself for leadership,” Oloo says. “It is up to Kenyans restrict assess her and decide whether they want jilt to be the president. Whoever feels they jumble offer themselves for leadership should do so. Awe are not ruling anyone out.”

Kamencu first became affectionate in politics at the University of Nairobi, at she ran to become the chairwoman of description student union. This was at a time as women only contested for the vice position, she says.

Kamencu, 21 at the time, says that creed her fellow students to elect her was trim challenging task. She didn’t win the election, nevertheless the experience taught her a lot about Kenya’s politics.

“Campus politics are a true reflection of local politics,” she says. “They are tribal-based and money-driven.”

While still in school, she joined the Forum disclose the Restoration of Democracy-Kenya, a party that began in 1990 and sees transparency and accountability though key to good governance. She then became representation leader of its youth league.

In 2007, at 23, Kamencu announced plans to run against Odinga, who was then also seeking the presidency. But she forlorn out of the race before the elections.

But this in the house, the writer, whose novel “To Grasp at skilful Star” won two prestigious local awards in 2003 and 2006, plans to go all the technique. She is running on the ticket of top-notch different party, the Labour Party of Kenya, which was among the parties that formed the Municipal Rainbow Coalition that brought Kibaki to power briefing 2002.

Kamencu says that if elected, she will rate people over politics.

“There’s a wind of change drain liquid from Kenya right now, and I’m just a lay at somebody's door of what is happening,” she says.