Alice Wahome who in recent times has captured national attention with her hard-hitting criticisms of President Uhuru Kenyatta is no stranger to controversy.
The first female to serve as MP for Kandara Constituency, Wahome understands the murky world of Kenyan politics and faced some serious obstacles in her rise to parliament.
She first captured the seat during general elections in March 2013, having to counter campaign propaganda, rowdy crowds, harassment and more.
On the morning that residents trooped to the nearest polling station to cast their vote, they were shocked to find an unusual widely distributed 'gift' from Wahome.
Packets of condoms branded with Alice Wahome's name and accompanied by a short message for Kandara residents were strewn all over several polling stations.
The message supposedly from Wahome urged voters to embrace family planning. Despite confusion over the 'gift', Wahome went on to clinch the seat crushing contestants such as former MP Maina Kamau and fellow aspirant PMG Kamau.
"The same people, the morning of nominations, packed condoms with a label in my name, branded my name. 'A gift from Alice Muthoni Wahome to the people of Kandara Constituency, tupange uzazi.
"It had two languages, English and Kiswahili. A condom is not the ordinary gift you would give to your voters when you are seeking for votes," Wahome told Citizen Tv in 2013.
Her competitor, PMG Kamau, however laughed off the claims, alleging that Wahome was responsible for distributing the condoms in an attempt to gain sympathy votes.
“You know that woman is a criminal. Those were her condoms. She wanted sympathy votes…to say, oh, men are throwing condoms at me…men, men, men…so that people feel sorry for her,” he told The Standard in an interview published on January 5th, 2020.
Wahome has since emerged as a no-nonsense MP and one of the most vocal members of Tangatanga, the political grouping allied to Deputy President William Ruto.
She asserted recently that the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) fronted by President Kenyatta and Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leader Raila Odinga was a ploy to extend Uhuru's stay in power beyond 2022 when his second term expires.
