Changing the narrative and gendering Kenyan political history: Jael Mbogo's fight for parliamentary elections in the 1960s

ABSTRACT In 1969, Jael Mbogo was among the first women to campaign for a parliamentary seat since Kenya became independent in 1963. Her opponent was Mwai Kibaki, a young and promising politician, then minister of finance and who later became Kenya's third president. Though she had been the head of the most powerful women's organisation and regularly wrote opinion pieces in one of the biggest national newspapers, Jael was fairly unknown. And yet, her name made the headlines as she almost defeated Kibaki in an election tarred with irregularities. But her campaign has remained a mere footnote in a historiography that only focuses on winners and pays little attention to the women who vied for, but never rose to, positions of power. Building on Jael's articles and oral testimony, this article explores the genesis of her political commitment to women's social and political empowerment and reconstructs her campaign for the 1969 parliamentary elections. It argues for a shift away from a conceptualisation of politics and political history that solely focuses on (male) winners in favour of a history that makes space for resilient and wilful female leaders.


Introduction
In 2021, on Mashujaa Day, the day Kenya honours its 'heroes', Jael Mbogo received 'an award for her lifelong struggle for freedom, democratisation, gender justice and human development'. 1The Kenyan website Kenyan.co.ke published one picture of the event, which took place at Jael's home in Ngong (close to Nairobi) and mentioned some of her main achievements: she was one of the first women to vie for a political seat after Kenya became independent (in 1963), and is remembered for having 'almost won' against the then prominent minister of finance, Mwai Kibaki in the 1969 parliamentary elections. 2In 2018, she had already been awarded the Elder of the Golden Heart medal by President Uhuru Kenyatta as one of the 'Kenyan women whose heroic works contributed The article opens with a reflection on the notion of silence in historical narratives and sources.Scholarly use of these notions has enabled a critical reflection on the way dominant archival and historiographical narratives erased or ignored women's historical agency.But African women's postcolonial political history is under-researched, and it is necessary to go beyond silences to find new ways to excavate this part of history.In a second part, this article explains why a focus on women's parliamentary politics can expose the way African postcolonial national politics (and their history) were profoundly gendered.Jael Mbogo's 1969 bid is then explored in more detail.The third part introduces the methodological issues that arose while documenting Jael's campaign and proposes the use of the concept of 'herstory' to overcome the limits of the archival and oral material used.The fourth and fifth parts offer a close reading of Jael's campaign and analyse its results.Though Jael lost the race, she was anything but a loser.She was a loud and ambitious leader, who confronted the intricacies of Kenyan politics in a way very few women did at the time.

Beyond silence
Since the 1970s, Africa's scholars have raised awareness about the gender biases of archival sources (colonial, postcolonial, national or diplomatic) that silence African women in historical narratives. 7They have also provided many alternatives by which to bypass the apparent lack of sources documenting women's contribution to decolonisation, nationalism and state building.Doing so, they have shown that women's invisibility did not mean an absence of traces.Instead, innovative methodologies and 'unusual' sources were advocated, to go against the androcentric archival grain (to paraphrase both Laura Ann Stoler and Helen Bradford) and reconstruct women's lost voices in African history. 8ore generally, historians attempted to conceptualise the meaning of absence or silence in archival documents.They have shown that those who are invisible are not necessarily voiceless or powerless, and that the presence of absence and the construction of silences must be explored.In 'Thinking About Silence,' Jay Winter defined silence as a 'socially constructed space in which and about which subjects and words normally used in everyday life are not spoken.' 9 Silence, for him, is a practice that entails having the privilege to be able to speak, as well as to silence what is known.This notion of privilege adds up to the idea (developed by Gayatri Spivak two decades earlier) that not everyone 'can speak', by highlighting the fact that those who do speak do not necessarily know better. 10imilarly, Carolyn Hamilton noted that the conceptualisation of state and public archives is built on a false dichotomy between preserved and allegedly absent documents. 11hen looking for Kenyan women's postcolonial politics in history books and archives, both historical narratives and sources appear marked by such gendered and political biases.On the one hand, Kenyan postcolonial political history has been told from a male perspective. 12Political historians interested in state-building focused almost exclusively on male actors, relying extensively on government archives and documenting formal processes of political socialisation and negotiations, which de facto excluded women. 13Women's politics consisted mostly in informal, grassroots, associational mobilisations. 14This political setting, together with the absence of women in the historiography led to the belief that that before the democratisation brought about in the 1990s, 'women have, rather passively, bemoaned their subordinate status, exploitation and denial of such basic human rights (…)'. 15This assumption of passivity is, however, not based on historical evidence.It seems to rely on a dearth of literature on Kenyan women's early postcolonial politics, which shows that little has been done to question the political and even colonial dimension of this historiography.
This assumption of passivity contrasts with the political determination many African women showed throughout colonisation and upon independence in sensitising women to politics, resisting patriarchal power and seeking to reshape social orders.Some figures such as Mekatilili wa Menza, Queen Mother Namangada, Bibi Titi Mohamed, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela or even Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (to mention but a few) have attracted academic study. 16Exploring female politicians' complex experience of power, scholars have shown these women claimed their own political space away from the 'burden of representations' that reduced them to apolitical mothers, wives, or widows.In doing so, scholars searched for counternarratives to retrace the political lives of women who, despite having ideas and interests of their own, did not fit the canon of successful leadership and/or who have remained in the shadow of African political history, being confined to the field of biography or women's studies.
Nevertheless, the attention given to female heroic figures perpetuated the focus on women's achievements in grassroots and/or associational politics, at the expense of more research on to women's contribution to postcolonial national politics. 17In fact, there has been a certain scholarly scepticism towards women's engagement in formal politics, widely shared among Western and African feminist circles, which tends to shy away from questions of politicking.Exploring women's parliamentary politics enables us to challenge the 'narrow view of politics as an elite-driven process' dominated by men, to borrow from Shireen Hassim's observation of South African women's politics. 18he question therefore is not about whether women were passive or absent, but about which women we look at and how can write a more complex history of African women's postcolonial politics.Susan Geiger warned more than twenty years ago against writing about nationalism as a 'story of men' only and unearthed Tanzanian women's contribution to the struggle for decolonisation and nation-building.In her 2018 book on gender and parliamentary politics in Uganda, Sylvia Tamale noted that 'many women of my generation tend to believe that the real struggles for women's emancipation started only recently.We fall into the trap of associating incipient women's groups with an exclusively apolitical, welfare-oriented agenda.' 19 Interviewed in 2016 on the occasion of the 4th African Feminist Forum, Amina Mama noted that women's history has been and is still being 'constantly erased' and that a 'partial history that sustains continuous oppression' should be 're-written and re-theorised.' 20Around the same time, Tunisian scholar and activist Amel Grami (reflecting on the aftermaths of the Tunisian Revolution), wrote about the necessity to further explore the way women's movements relate to politics, calling for a re-conceptualisation of women's political contributions beyond the question of women's issues and political rights. 21oking for Kenyan women in the history of parliamentary politics Exploring African women's contribution to parliamentary politics gives the possibility to refresh historical narratives about their public political engagement.Postcolonial African legislatures have often been described as dominated by male elite actors and concerns.This assumption may explain the dearth of literature exploring the history of women's contribution to parliamentary politics in African countries. 22In Kenya more particularly, parliamentary elections have remained a rare, if not the only space for citizens to take part in a formal democratic process, and women did vie for parliamentary seats.Kenyan parliamentary elections were one of the few occasions on which the elitist establishment, could be publicly challenged, even though political change did not necessarily materialise. 23This was even more so for women: whereas most governmental functions required appointment directly by the president-including those of ministers, provincial administrators, board members and even members of the ruling party, the Kenya African National Union (KANU), and thus favoured a male leadership, parliamentary elections were open to all.And yet, women remained largely excluded from formal political roles in state institutions.As Nyakwaka and Ndeda wrote, 'the marginalisation of women in Kenya and in politics […] cannot be resolved without a clear understanding of its genesis.' 24 Examination of the first post-independence parliamentary elections in Kenya enables historians to trace women's contribution not only to formal, but also to national, politics. 25In 1958 and 1961 respectively, Kenya's colonial governors (Sir Evelyn Baring and later Sir Patrick Muir Renison) appointed the first two female representatives on the Legislative Council: Jemima Gecaga and Priscilla Abwao. 26Their appointment, however, was more a response to a trend across East Africa than a sign of genuine interest in women's affairs. 27The constitutional reforms that were ongoing and meant to increase the representation of the African elite in representative institutions often ignored female representatives, despite their mobilisation in the struggle for decolonisation. 28The 1963 elections were the last before Kenya became independent.Though seat numbers were increased to 177 (in comparison to 33 in 1961, the first elections to be conducted on the basis of universal suffrage), the 1963 election was a 'case of exclusion', to use Effie Owuor's words, when it came to women. 29No women stood as a candidate in the election, and none were nominated to parliament. 30evertheless, throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, Kenyan women tirelessly sought to become more politically independent and visible.The prominent women's organisation Maendeleo ya Wanawake (MyW) became a key instrument for mobilisation.Although women's groups had existed before the creation of the Kenyan colony, the institutionalisation of women's organisations only began in the late colonial period, a time when colonial reforms were made to better contain and control nationalist movements. 31Following the 1952 declaration of a state of emergency to contain Mau Mau agitation against colonial rule, European wives of British colonial officers formally established MyW. 32It was meant to mobilise, structure and formalise the already existing women's self-help groups and further train women in child care, hygiene, cooking, home sanitation, and handicrafts, among other domestic activities.MyW and women's clubs were modelled after English women's tea clubs and used as social meeting points not only to offer humanitarian support and to provide training on proper domestic behaviour but also to '[brainwash] the women with psychological warfare propaganda' the British Government had set up against Mau Mau fighters. 33The outwardly apolitical objectives of the women's groups designed under colonial rule limited women's affairs to matters related to the household and to the belief that 'women's felt needs can only be solved through participation in women's groups activities'-not in politics. 34With the accession to independence, MyW underwent profound change.Its leadership was Africanised: in 1959, Phoebe Asiyo became the first African chairperson of the organisation.Lisa Aubrey interpreted this Africanisation as a 'revolution from within', arguing that it did not mean that women's issues gained prominence in the government's political agenda. 35This certainly holds some truth, as the organisation continued to promote activities such as domestic care, hygiene, child welfare, games, singing and dancing.But there is more to it.MyW also enabled Kenyan women to position themselves as political and economic agents, for all women who campaigned for a parliamentary seat after independence were members of the organisation and, as this article shows, subtly used the organisation to gather political support.
MyW's agenda clearly went beyond empowering women at home, and calling for more female parliamentary representation was already a priority for its members upon independence.Women's leaders demanded 'a minimum of four women to fill seats in the new legislature'. 36Their demand was ignored.Yet, prominent female leaders to continue fight for national visibility.In 1964, Ruth Habwe, a feminist and activist who was already active in MyW, 'was the first woman in the post-colonial Kenya to challenge a male only parliamentarian system, when she contested one of the three special parliamentary seats vacant at the time.' 37 The little information that exists shows that her attempt rapidly turned sour.Her bold act led her to be suspended from KANU.She was 'ridiculed by party membership for daring to contest the seat and ordered to 'go back to the Kitchen and cook for Habwe's children.' 38 The December 1969 parliamentary elections saw an increase of women candidates.By then, Kenya had become a one-party state.Following the banning of the opposition party, the Kenya People's Union, in June 1969, President Kenyatta 'utilise [d] the electoral process as a mechanism to allocate and define positions in his clientelist machine.' 39 Intra-party competition was high, and Kenyans were expected to vote for their favourite local leaders. 40The process of recruitment was relatively open: 'any adult over twentyfive years of age who was literate in English and prepared to pay a £50 deposit was eligible to run.' 41 Candidates also had to be 'certified by the KANU Executive Committee as loyal to the "Party".' 42 Though there was no gender restriction, these requirements meant that only a small literate and well-endowed elite could join the political race.

Writing Jael's story: methodological considerations
Jael was born in 1933 in Got Regea, in the former Central Nyanza province, but grew up in Eldama Ravine (in the Baringo district of the formal Rift Valley province), where her father worked as a farm supervisor.Her parents, who were both literate, sent her to missionary schools. 45The older she got, the more difficult she found this very strict education model, which offered very little opportunities for young girls to live their lives to the fullest: 'we could choose between nursing, midwifery, teaching, and marriage.' 46he chose stenography, and was perhaps lucky to work for a prominent lawyer known for his radical political stance, Dr. Clement Arwings-Khodhek. 47Around 1957/8, after a few years working as his assistant, she was elected to the city council of Eastland (Nairobi).It is there that she met Phoebe Asiyo, who was an active member of the largest women's organisation, MyW and who initiated her into women's politics. 48In 1961, Asiyo took over the chairmanship of MyW, and Jael became general secretary.Two years later, as Kenya became independent and Phoebe was the first woman appointed assistant superintendent of prisons, Jael took over the chairmanship of MyW and remained at the head of the organisation until 1967. 49As chairwoman, Jael was one of the few women to openly demand greater political representation for women after Kenya became independent in 1963.
She was also one of the first African women to write about women's affairs in one of the most prominent national newspapers in the 1960s, the Daily Nation. 50In her columns (which regularly appeared from 1965 to 1969), she reflected on various women's issues (from the economy of handicrafts to the critique of the government's policies on taxes) and offered sharp views on the importance of education, gender and politics in an independent Kenya.As she started to campaign for the 1969 elections, she stopped writing for the Daily Nation.She did not resume writing at the end of the elections-a coincidence that might well have to do with an active politics of silencing.Jael's articles, which can easily be retrieved in the library of the Daily Nation, constitute a unique source to reconstruct her political imagination, get a more precise idea of the issues she defended during her campaign, and remain a rare written source of a woman's voice in the public debate.As Lynn Thomas showed in her book Politics of the Womb: Women, Reproduction and the State in Kenya, women's issues were the object of patriarchal and patronising male discussions throughout the 1960s in Kenya. 51It is hardly surprising to see that next to Jael's column were Katie Campbell's 'Counterspy' chronicles, which dealt exclusively with shopping and beauty issues, browsing kitchen boards and polythene sandwich boxes as well as jewels and make-up. 52ampbell's columns were so appreciated that in August 1967, when Counterspy stopped being published for a few weeks, the editor, surrounded by 'considerable comment on its absence', felt compelled to inform its readers that 'The COUNTERSPY will be back, doing her weekly rounds of Nairobi's shops, informing Nairobi residents of bargain buys and new items in the city very soon.' 53 Why then, did Jael's column disappear without notice after her campaign in 1969?This is one of the questions I wanted to ask Jael in person.When I first visited her in her home, she welcomed me warmly.She had prepared breakfast.We had only spoken on the phone to agree on an appointment and as we sat at the table, she asked me, with a smile on her face, why she should agree to talk about her life to me.I had brought with me copies of the newspaper articles she had written for the Daily Nation.She was surprised and moved.Because I had taken pain to search, read, print and bring copies of these documents, her scepticism faded away; she thanked me for bringing documents that she had not seen since they were published, some fifty years ago and asked me what I wanted to know.
Jael and I met twice for two long interviews (conducted in English) and continued to be in touch via phone calls and WhatsApp thereafter.In a way, her interviews, as well as the WhatsApp messages we exchanged, constitute alternative sources and highlight the archival silence that risks swallowing politically defeated, marginalised and vulnerable political actors who lack the political, social and financial means to control the narratives of their own history, let alone to pass on their own archives for posterity.I promised Jael that I would let her know about my work and would let her read and approve any text about her before having it published.We both had an agenda.I was (and still am at the time of writing this article) working on a larger research project on Kenyan women's parliamentary politics, which will involve several publications.As for Jael, she wanted her story to be known: she confided that she had always wanted to write an autobiography but lacked resources to do so.She saw me as the opportunity to move forward with this project.Our search for someone who would be willing to help her (for free) with this project was slowed during the Covid-19 pandemic but is finally materialising.Jael is now (by November 2022) meeting with a writer to record her story and we found a publisher interested in this project.Funding the publishing costs will remain the next step to finalise the project.
This article mainly draws from the interviews conducted with Jael in 2019.As she confided, she owns few documents about her own political career.Though she kept her campaign documents 'for a long time', occasionally losing some while 'shifting from [one] place to another', her husband, who was very much opposed to her political public role, destroyed what was left after their divorce.'The moment I left,' she explained, if he came across them, chop chop chop.They disappeared.My photo albums, three big volumes, he took them and burned them.It makes me feel bad.After the separation, what he did was to destroy as much as possible. 54is loss shows that the processes of political and historiographical marginalisation started with the politics of the intimate.Jael's papers could not feed into an archive because they were condemned to the same politics of silence and invisibility that defined women's public role.Jael's story had become invisible not because she had no voice, but because there was no space in her private sphere as well as in politics, archival narratives and history writing to celebrate potentially subversive female political actors.
Although my interview with Jael provided insights into to how she campaigned, the scant material that survives still raises significant challenges to reconstructing her 1969 campaign.Her campaign documents are lost and very little is known as to who her supporters and voters were.Similarly, little could be found on her opponents and on the other female campaigners: a void that made comparative perspectives difficult. 55The following story must therefore be read as a herstory, as defined by Nicki Hitchcott.It is a 'feminist confession' which challenges the individual or 'personal space' characteristic of (Western) autobiographies, makes spaces for emotions and memories as tools for history writing and addresses 'an international community of women'. 56Herstories generate historical narratives that defy artificial boundaries between private and public spaces to account of women's collective identity.They play against the 'ostensibly objective criteria of male-dominated canon' of the autobiographical genre. 57Nationalist narratives of African decolonisation and nation building are indeed heavily dominated by male subjectivities. 58Enabling Jael, as a woman, to narrate her own history and placing her testimony at the heart of history writing is therefore necessary to gender Kenya's postcolonial political history. 59

Jael Mbogo's 1969 parliamentary campaign
Jael certainly knew that the 1969 elections were a unique opportunity for women to gain political visibility.Since Kenya's first parliamentary elections in 1963, women's votes were crucial: '[men] knew they had to use women.Women are very good campaigners, they go door to door […].[They] started way back organizing themselves and working in groups.' 60 A MyW leader back then, she was on the front line to observe what she called the 'exploitation' by male politicians of women's groups in times of elections: 'they were offered fish, salt, sugar to vote for so and so.They were really used.' 61 This critical analysis drove Jael to vie for a parliamentary seat herself: The attitude was that women's place is in the kitchen.That is what I was fighting.I said the kitchen is always in the house.And parliament is also a house, the house of parliament, so what is the difference if the place of women is in the house?(Laughs) Why not?That is where we should belong!Why leave it to the men only? 62el refused the invisibility conferred on the family, which was supposedly apolitical.Instead, she wanted to politicise the private sphere in which women were confined: I told the women that politics is with you 24/7.You cannot escape politics.When you are in the kitchen, you have politics of the kitchen.When you are inside your house, you have the politics of the rest of your room.In the bedroom, that is critical, politics now.Because there also you have your right.Therefore, politics is your daily bread.You eat politics from morning till tomorrow. 63nce MyW was not supposed to play a political role, this was quite a subversive political message.Jael was aware of the thin line between the private and public sphere.As she started campaigning, she knew that as a woman leader, she had to play in both spheres to gather political support.
At the time she decided to join the political race, Jael was no longer chairman of MyW.She kept her job at the city council in Bahati, a constituency within the then Nairobi province. 64Taking the decision to campaign was not easy.She was an unknown candidate to the vast majority of the constituency's inhabitants.She also faced another, more personal challenge, that of convincing her husband to support her: My husband was very much against everything.I had two battles: one at home and one outside.[…] At first he took it as a game.He was not very comfortable with the idea that I wanted to go to parliament and that I was becoming too popular for him as the head of MyW.[During official events] he would go to a corner and […] drink himself dead.Alright.1969 came, but he was not campaigning for me or helping me. 65ain, women's politics started at home. 66Though she never won the battle of convincing her husband, she felt reassured by the increasing ranks of supporters she eventually gathered.
Organising and conducting the campaign effectively required a minimum of funds and equipment: 'It was not cheap!I used all my money.I had a business in my own name and was working for a salary.' 67 She had invested part of her salary into a small transport company, which eventually enabled her to own six trucks she would rent to the city council.She also used her personal funds to form a campaign team: I had my (women's) groups, my managers, my campaign strategist, I had my youth wings […].We were about fifteen, and I had three or four women who were very influential […] in the areas they came from.They had shown quality of leadership and organisational ability.
These were women who were also heading local women's groups.
She recalled how she had to prove herself as a worthy candidate: 'everything was how do we know the capacity of this woman.Somebody we don't know.'She had already started 'to run around the constituency and give people indication that you are interested in this race.'According to her, people were showing interest in 'Mama Mbogo', and women in particular met her candidacy with great enthusiasm-something that later newspaper reports seemed to confirm.Still, Jael had to have her candidacy officially validated.She heard rumours that her opponents hoped to stop her physically from 'getting the nomination papers.When that news came to me, I said there is no fear.I have trucks and we are going to use the trucks.I will not use my little car.' 68 Nomination day, on 26 November 1969, was a baptism of fire.
The evening before, Jael and her team gathered at her house.One of her trucks was parked in the compound.She recalled that that night my living room was like a football field.Everybody slept here.Those were the kind of things my husbands did not like.I said these are my security people and we are leaving here at 6 o'clock for the nomination.[…] We had food, we slept and by 4 o'clock everybody was up, tea was ready, breakfast was ready and by 6, pop!The atmosphere on that day was 'colourful' with 'jubilant singing, some comic moments and moments of drama' and 'as early as seven o'clock […] candidates had already started lining up' outside District Commissioners' offices.Using the lorry as a shelter, Jael was surrounded by her security team and supporters.Once her nomination papers were deposed, her candidacy was accepted.Yet that day, it was one of her biggest opponents, Mwai Kibaki, then powerful minister for commerce and industry, who 'stole the show'. 69y then, Kibaki was a young, prominent minister.Born in Othaya (Nyeri, Central Province) in 1931, he had 'spent the 1950s pursuing his education […] and soon became part of a small educated elite'. 70After he graduated in economics at Makerere University College, he won a scholarship to study at the prestigious London School of Economics, where he specialised in public finance.Upon his return to East Africa in 1959, he first became a lecturer at Makerere University College before entering Kenyan politics in 1960 with clear ideas about how to develop the country. 71Kibaki was one of the earliest organisers of one the two main nationalist parties, KANU, and therefore first in line when it came to organising the 1961 elections in which KANU became the leading party, dominating the independence negotiations.Thereafter, he occupied leading governmental functions: in 1965, he was appointed assistant minister for finance and in 1966, minister for commerce and industry, before finally becoming minister for finance in 1969.Kibaki had banked on his 'reputation as a brilliant economist and minister to propel him forward in Kenyan politics.' 72He still lacked, however, connections with the grassroot level.
Throughout the country, the campaign was, according to a British official, 'lively with a surprising degree of freedom of speech.' 73 Jael was a passionate and 'energetic' campaigner (as she would later be described). 74She remembers the rallies with a nostalgic enthusiasm: 'that is where I really feel alive!With the crowd!You just feel better, this is the bulldozing!' 75 For the 1969 elections, she had six other opponents, all men, and 'all KANU.That was what we call KANU idea of democracy (laughs).[…] May the best candidate go through.' 76During the rallies they all 'shared the platform […].So you don't talk behind your opponents, but right face to face.' 77 While the speaking order was carefully organised, cordial organisation had limits, for youth wings were also in charge of rallying and dispersing the crowds. 78Jael claims that the campaign was rapidly polarised between Kibaki's candidacy and hers.
She went not only 'house to house, but ward to ward […].The wards were very big and so we could organise three or four rallies for one ward.' 79Songs were an important instrument of communication and so was her musical band, 'a very powerful band where the young people formed'. 80The songs the band or she herself composed would praise the candidate and call for rallies to hear 'Mama Mbogo' speaking.Children would follow the van, and then become lost and so she would have to look for their parents 'of course to meet [them]!The children gave me a lot of support!' 81 Though she did not exclusively speak about women, women were very much at the centre of her campaign and political agenda.On December 3, the journalist for the Daily Nation described how she: […] got onto the platform amid cheering from women.She said women had been "humiliated" by the all-male Assembly in the past.Later Mrs. Mbogo complained that the microphone was disconnected when she stood up to speak.She called this "political bankruptcy" and a "cowardly act". 82e day after, she responded publicly to misogynist comments on her political capabilities: "Some people say that, because I am a lady, if elected to Parliament I will just go there, sit and cry because I will be afraid of saying anything.Tell me now, right here, am I crying, am I afraid of anything?"The crowd roared back: "No!". 83 the beginning of December 1969, candidates had been campaigning for more than a month, and there were only a few days left before the polls on 6 December.Ironically, Kibaki had declared a few days before the polls, that 'some Members who had not been in touch with their rural constituents' issues were faced with some difficulty in getting re-elected because during their term of office they were involved in national affairs.' 84 Originally from Nyeri, Kibaki had been parachuted into Bahati following the 1963 elections but had little connection to the area.Jael claimed that he 'did not play his role as an elected leader for his people.He was a stranger to them.' 85 In the meantime, she saw the campaign getting 'hotter and hotter'. 86Polling had hardly started before the two were said to be 'neck-to-neck'. 87ibaki officially won by 'more than 500 votes' in the midst of alleged irregularities. 88hortly after, on 9 December, Jael sought to have the result invalidated.Besides filing a petition to the High Court, she wrote to President Jomo Kenyatta, arguing that '2,000 voters (…) had been turned away from the polling stations' while many more had been intimidated, as she further described in her petition: Voters were intimated, beaten and chased away by police and GSU [General Service Unit, a paramilitary wing of the Kenyan police] for no apparent reason.There was biased treatment because some people were called from the queues to cast their votes.Although the District Commissioner authorised that polling stations should remain open until midnight, the station at Makadara was closed at 11.20p.m.More than 4,000 voters were turned away after queuing for more than 12 hours. 89el also stated in the interview that: In one polling station, seven of my boxes were not collected.[…] Me and my supporters, one or two my bodyguards went to Makongeni and found these boxes hidden behind a cupboard.
[…] in one polling station, Kibaki did not have a single box for him and I would have fourteen ballot boxes with my photo, full.And that opened up opportunities for rigging because you can remove this photo and put it anywhere else or remove the box and burn it.So some of my boxes were burned with ballots inside not counted.I had agents but some of them were bought. 90ither the petition, nor security reports possibly documenting the violence and irregularities could be found in archival records to validate Jael's assertion.We know that her petition was in vain.A few days later, Kibaki declared he 'would welcome a new election to prove who would have won.But we must all accept the law as its stands.' 91 He argued that a 'post-mortem investigation' would risk creating conflict in the constituency.Thereafter, he held a party at his house to celebrate his victory, another occasion for him to criticise Jael's call for a second election which could cure her 'of the very dangerous ailment of self-delusion.' 92 These cruel words closed the public debate on the 1969 elections in Bahati but barely hid a humiliating victory (or defeat) for Kenya's influential minister.

Gendered dynamics in Kenyan politics
It is impossible to state with certainty that the 1969 elections in Bahati were rigged-no source that could point in one direction or the other has survived in the Kenya National Archives.There are two other ways to explain Jael's defeat.On the one hand, ethnic politics, which defined the Kenyan political scene upon independence, played an important role.In June 1969, the assassination of Tom Mboya, a prominent Luo politician who was the only serious (and therefore threatening) challenger to President Jomo Kenyatta's authority, triggered political tensions in the country.In this context, the December 1969 elections were, as a British official put it, 'a vote of no confidence in a Kikuyu-dominated government.' 93Because Jael too was of Luo origins (she was born in Nyanza province), it is possible that, as the Weekly Review later reported, 'Many of the votes cast by Nyanza people for Jael Mbogo in 1969 may be considered protest votes which normally might have gone to a well-known non-Kikuyu candidate in Bahati had there been one.' 94imilarly, British officials noted in an internal correspondence, that the: Bahati constituency is apparently predominantly non-Kikuyu in composition with large number of Luos.[…] Some suggestions are being heard that as a form of compromise Mrs. Jael may be one of the 12 members nominated to the National Assembly by the President. 95is would not happen, for Jael herself refused any arrangement: It is to co-opt women so that they are voiceless.Because if you know that I am powerful and you give me a post to silence me.This is why I never accepted nomination, because it was a way of shutting my mouth. 96 the other hand, her defeat also reveals the gendered dynamics of Kenyan politics, for it spared Kibaki from disgrace.Being defeated by a woman would have been a personal humiliation: this was a time no one could have thought it possible to have a prominent minister seriously challenged by an unknown woman. 97Jael's silencing was therefore evicting a particularly vocal, ambitious and effective woman from the political scene; a wilful woman no one had expected could talk the way she did.Her ideas, writing, speeches, and even energy did not fit what was expected of a good, proper African woman, as the second Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi would later depict: one who is silent and subservient; one who is to be seen, yet never to be heard. 98Upon her defeat, Jael could no longer count on using MyW as a platform to voice her ideas.Durably marked by its colonial legacy, the organisation was meant to empower women economically, not politically.In fact, Jael's defeat coincided with MyW taking a more conservative and apolitical line.With Jael no longer writing for the Daily Nation after the elections, women lost one of the loudest voices for women's political rights.As such, one could say that Jael was not so much silenced as an individualshe did continue her work in various, and still prominent non-government organisations, and continued to vie for a parliamentary seat. 99She was, however, silenced as a female politician: for a long time, she would remain persona non-grata in politics.She ran again for the 1974 and 1979 elections, each time unsuccessfully, and received little attention in the news.Instead, she remains remembered almost exclusively for having lost against Kibaki.

Conclusion
On 21 April 2022, President Mwai Kibaki passed away at the age of 90.Amongst the many articles which reconstructed his career and reflected on his legacy, one mentioned Jael Mbogo.The focus was on her '1969 Bahati MP Race' and on the fact that 'Mama Jael is a rare example of a career politician who never actually held an elective post'. 100By being a resilient, wilful and outspoken woman, Jael had an outstanding political career that defies the canons of political history writing.At stake is not only to focus more on women in national, elite politics, but to critically reflect on the concepts and methodology one uses to make their contribution visible.
Concerns about silences and absences in sources are important to create awareness about the specificity of African women's history, but they may not be enough to render the loud and resilient will many women displayed at a time when they were not expected to play a political role.Three main conclusions can be drawn.Firstly, the article emphasises a focus on resilience and wilfulness as an important component of a gendered history writing.The immediate postcolonial years did not bring the political empowerment many African/Kenyan women had hoped for after their fight for decolonisation.The women who decided to vie for parliamentary seats were therefore stepping into a political world where they were not particularly welcome.Jael's early political career exemplifies women's wilful efforts to resist their de-politicisation.Jael first had to resist her husband to join politics.As a president of MyW, she fought against the idea that women's issues should not be publicly debated because women belong to the 'kitchen'.As a writer for the Daily Nation, she tried to show that women's empowerment should take place at home just as in public and defended an encompassing socioeconomic and political view of women's empowerment.Campaigning for parliamentary elections, she pushed her ideas further by appealing to both men and women voters to support her ideas.She contested her defeat through all legal means, and eventually campaigned again in 1974 and 1979.Despite her three defeats, she remained politically active and, perhaps more importantly, refused to be silenced, continuing to share her story.
Secondly, this article has pleaded for a greater focus on women's role in early postcolonial parliamentary politics to reconstruct the complexity of female politics at the national level.This focus does not simply suggest feminising political history, by simply looking at female actors.Reconstructing Jael's political history has shown the importance of including defeated actors in the narrative.The focus on the few women who triumphed over the system has come at the expense of those who, perhaps less known, vied for but never rose to positions of power.The understanding of women's political agency, however, could and should be more nuanced.As Jean Allman, Susan Geiger and Nakanyike Musisi noted, agency cannot be reduced to the idea of having control: in a (colonial) context of asymmetrical power and domination, women could be 'motivated by their own agenda.' 101Similarly, Saba Mahmood argued for the 'decolonisation' of the concept of agency to consider it 'not as a synonym for resistance to relations of domination but as a capacity for action that historically specific relations of subordination enable and create'. 102hirdly, these conceptual considerations must be anchored in concrete archival practices.This article has suggested that using the concept of herstory may be a way to renew historical narratives.Making space for a woman's personal reading of historical events appears necessary to overcome the incompleteness of archival sources, overturn the marginalisation of women's politics in the historiography and, perhaps more importantly, reveal the way politics play out in both the private and public spheres.The question is also how to create an archive of these herstories and how to elaborate more thorough reflection on archival research practices to make these women's legacy visible and accessible.