Martha Karua

Martha Wangari Karua (born 22 September 1957) is a Kenyan politician.

She is a former long-standing member of parliament for Gichugu Constituency and an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya.

The daughter of Jackson Karua and his wife Josephine Wanjiru, Martha Karua was born on 22 September 1957 in Kirinyaga District in the Central Province of Kenya.

Brought up in the village of Kimunye in Gichugu Constituency, she is the second child in a family of eight, four girls and four boys.

She attended Mugumo primary school, Kabare Girls Boarding School, St Michael's boarding school Keroguya.

She later attended Kiburia Girls Secondary School, Ngiriambu Girl's secondary school, and Karoti Girl's secondary schools where she passed her East African School Certificate at Karoti Girls High School in Kirinyaga County.

She then attended Nairobi Girl's secondary school for A levels.

She studied law at the University of Nairobi from 1977 to 1980.

Between 1980 and 1981 she was enrolled at the Kenya School of Law for the statutory postgraduate law course that is a prerequisite to admission to the Kenyan roll of advocates and licensing to practice law in Kenya.

After graduating, from 1981 to 1987 Karua worked as a magistrate in various courts including those at Makadara, Nakuru and Kibera, receiving credit for careful discernment.

In 1987, she left to start her own law firm, Martha Karua & Co. Advocates, which she ran until 2002.

Cases included the treason trial of Koigi Wamwere and that of the Kenyan member of parliament Mirugi Kariuki.

At the risk of being blacklisted by the Moi government, she defended several human rights activists.

Her work contributed to family law, especially in regard to matrimonial property.

Karua was a member of the opposition political movements that successfully agitated for the re-introduction of multi-party democracy in Kenya in the early 1990s.

Kenya was at the time under the authoritarian rule of the Kenya African National Union (KANU), the only legally recognised political party in Kenya and which was led by the late president Daniel Arap Moi.

Karua joined Kenneth Matiba's Ford-Asili party.

In September 1992, she walked out of the party nomination elections which she regarded as compromised leaving her sole opponent Geoffrey Karekia Kariithi to be declared winner.

She joined the Democratic Party (DP) where she won the party ticket in November 1992, proceeded to win the election as Gichugu Constituency member of Parliament in December 1992 against the incumbent Kareithi, freeing Gichugu constituents from the Kareithi–Nahashon Njuno rivalry.

Karua became the MP for Gichugu constituency and the first woman lawyer to be popularly elected to Parliament.

She was elected as the Democratic party's legal affairs secretary in 1993.

In 1998, Karua declined the position of Shadow Minister for Culture and Social Services which conflicted with her position of National Secretary for Constitutional Affairs (an elected office) that made her the official spokesperson on legal matters of the party.

She opted to resign her position as the National Secretary for legal and constitutional Affairs.

In 2001, when the Constitutional Review Bill was laid before the House, the entire Opposition with the exception of Karua walked out of Parliament.

The Bill had been rejected by the Opposition as well as Civil Society but Karua was of the view that as elected representatives, instead of walking out, it would be more prudent to remain in Parliament and put the objections on record.

She therefore chose to remain in the Parliament and her objections to the Bill were duly recorded in the Hansard.

Later she was among those who formed the political coalition NARC that won the 2002 general election in Kenya ending KANU's nearly four decades of leadership in Kenya's politics, having actively participated in agitation for expanded democratic space and respect for human rights as a member and later a leader in the Law Society of Kenya.

She also previously served as the Minister of Water Resources Management & Development, and was behind the implementation of the Water Act 2002, which has since then accelerated the pace of water reforms and service provision in Kenya.

Karua remained Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister in the Cabinet appointed by Kibaki on 8 January 2008, following the controversial December 2007 election.

In an interview with BBC's HARDtalk in January 2008, Karua said, regarding the violent crisis that had developed over the election results, that while the government had anticipated that the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) of Raila Odinga might be "planning mayhem if they lost", it was surprised by "the magnitude" of it, calling the violence "ethnic cleansing".

Asked to clarify, Karua said that she was stating "categorically" that the ODM planned ethnic cleansing.

Odinga subsequently called Karua's accusation "outrageous".

Karua headed the government's team in negotiations with the opposition regarding the political dispute that resulted from the election.

The political crisis eventually led to the signing of a power-sharing agreement between Kibaki and Odinga.

She was Minister for Justice until resigning from that position in April 2009.

She has consistently fought for the protection of women's rights and improvements to the democratic process.

Until 6 April 2009 she was the Minister of Justice, National Cohesion & Constitutional Affairs.

Karua ran for presidency in 2013 under the Narc-Kenya ticket making her the third woman to run for the highest office, after Charity Ngilu and Wangari Maathai in the 1997 elections.

She emerged sixth in the race.

She was picked to run for deputy president after being nominated as the running mate of presidential candidate Raila Odinga in the 2022 Kenyan general election.