Wavinya Ndeti is a Kenyan politician who has been chairlady of the governing council of the Kenya Water Institute since 7 February 2019. She previously served as a Member of Parliament for the Kathiani Constituency in the 10th Kenyan parliament. She was the first and so far only woman to have represented the constituency since independence. She was a WDM-K candidate for Machakos Governor in 2017, having contested the seat previously in 2013 on the CCU ticket, but lost on both occasions to incumbent Alfred Mutua.
Political history
Wavinya Ndeti joined politics in 2007 contesting and being elected MP for the Kathiani Constituency under Chama Cha Uzalendo. She had previously participated in the ODM-Kenya primaries, which she claimed were rigged in favor of incumbent legislator Peter Kyalo Kaindi, forcing her to switch to Chama Cha Uzalendo. She eventually won a landslide victory, garnering 28,178 votes against Kaindi’s 9,813. In winning the seat, Ndeti became the only woman to have represented the constituency in Parliament since independence. Ndeti was appointed to a grand coalition government as a Co-assistant Minister for Youth and Sports under Helen Sambili. During the 2010 constitutional referendum she supported the new constitution, citing the importance of having a uniform distribution of resources and having decentralized leadership. Although the document was unpopular in the Machakos District, the majority of Kenyans voted in favour of the new constitution, which President Mwai Kibaki promulgated on 27 August 2010.
Ndeti, one of the founding members of CORD, ran for the newly created office of Governor of Machakos on a CCU ticket in 2013. She picked former Water and Natural Resources minister Mutua Katuku as her running mate. She lost the bid to Alfred Mutua and subsequently lost the election petition on grounds she failed to appoint enough party agents to all polling stations. In 2017, Ndeti and Makueni Governor Kivutha Kibwana pledged to rejoin Wiper Democratic Movement under a brokered agreement known as the Emali Declaration. In the declaration, Kibwana was to defend his seat on the Wiper Democratic Movement and Ndeti would be given a direct ticket to unseat Mutua.
Wiper Democratic Movement-Kenya
Ndeti ditched Chama Cha Uzalendo for Wiper on the morning of 5 April 2017, in line with the law that requires candidates to change political parties within 90 days of an election. Initially, she was handed direct nomination with Peter Mathuki as running mate, but the party decided to hold primaries. The deal had been a product of months of negotiations between the Wiper Party and Ndeti's CCU party, with Kalonzo said to have prevailed upon Mathuki and Machakos Deputy Governor Bernard Kiala to compromise their ambitions in favour of a ticket that would send Mutua home and win back the seat to the party. This led to the WDM-K NEB awarding a direct nomination to former Machakos CountySecretary for EducationJackson Kala Kiala decided to run as an independent.
Legal battles
Ndeti was entangled in long-running court battles with CCU Party ChairmanMaur Bwanamaka over its leadership until she joined WDM-K.
Criticism
In April 2019, the Nairobi News website by Nation media posted reactions by Kenyans to criticism of Ndeti's views on the post-partum care she received after the birth of her elder son Charles while in the UK.
