• She was one of three women governors, Charity Ngilu and Anne Waiguru being the others.
• Unwavering defender of the Jubilee Party who supported the controversial security laws and got splashed with water and caught up in a foray over it.
Joyce Laboso, one of only three women governors, was initially a French teacher thrust into politics by accident.
And she proved she could be just as determined and combative as male politicians.
On June 10, 2008, the Egerton University lecturer in French was doing her shopping at a supermarket in Nakuru town when the news broke that a fixed-wing plane carrying Roads minister and Bomet MP Kipkalya Kones had crashed in Narok.
Joyce’s sister Lorna, then Sotik MP and an assistant minister, was on that plane. No one survived. Lorna and Kones were heading to Kericho for a political rally for an ODM candidate contesting the Ainamoi seat in a by-election.
The seat fell vacant following the death of newly elected MP David Kimutai Too who was shot in Eldoret. After Lorna’s burial, the ODM party insisted the parliamentary seats left vacant by Kones and Lorna would be taken by members of their families in honour of their contribution to the party’s campaigns in the 2007 General Election.
After a spirited battle, Sotik voters elected Joyce Labosoin a by-election on September 25, 2008.
Running on an ODM ticket, she defeated 11 contestants by garnering 23,880 votes, beating her closest challenger, Brigadier Alexander Sitienei, by a margin of more than 10,000 votes.
In the run-up to the 2013 General Election Laboso ditched ODM and threw her weight behind Deputy President William Ruto’s United Republican Party that was causing waves in the region.
She retained the seat, something many attributed to her integrity, accountability, aggressiveness and impressive development record.
A woman of firsts:
She was the first woman Deputy Speaker in Kenyan Parliament and the first Kipsigis woman to serve for two consecutive terms in Parliament.
She also became the only MP from Bomet county who managed to successfully defend her seat in the 2013 General Elections.
Her sister, Lorna Laboso who died in a plane crash, was the first woman to be elected MP in the whole of Kipsigis in 2008.
Laboso was also among the first three elected woman governors and became among the first Kipsigis women to attain Doctorate degrees.
Governors Anne Waiguru of Kiinaga and Charity Ngilu of Kitui are the other women governors.
Breaking political ceiling
Continuing her winning streak, Laboso felled competitive anti-Jubilee Governor Isaac Rutto in the 2017 General Election to join the male-dominated governors' club alongside Ngilu and Waiguru. Rutto was a fierce defender of devolution. She pledged to correct his alleged corruption and defend women and youth.
It was a stunning victory
Joyce Cherono Laboso was born at Kimulot in Konoin on November 25, 1960, before the family migrated to their current Sotik home. Born in a family of six (four sisters and two brothers) Laboso was married to Edwin Abonyo, a former manager with James Finlays Kenya Limitedtea company in Kericho.
Laboso was born into a political family as her late mother Rebecca was a former councillor. Laboso went to Molo Primary School before joining Kenya High School.
Between 1980 and 1983 she was an undergraduate at Kenyatta University pursuing a bachelor's of education degree in French.
From 1984 to 1985, Laboso undertook a postgraduate diploma in teaching French at the University of Paul Valery in France.
Between 1989 and 1991, she proceeded to the United Kingdom where she did a master's in teaching English as a foreign language at the University of Reading.
From 2002 and 2006 she was at the University of Hull in the UK studying for a PhD in gender and language education.
Laboso began her teaching career at Kipsigis Girls High School in Kericho from 1985 before becoming an assistant French lecturer at Egerton University in 1990.
She stayed at Egerton until the year 2001. She went to Farrow House Education Centre in the UK in 2002 where she was a special needs lecturer until 2006.
In 2007, she returned to Egerton University and also served as a commissioner at the National Commission on Gender and Development before joining politics the following year.
Face of loyalty
During the enactment of the controversial Security Laws in 2014, Laboso became the face of absolute loyalty to the Jubilee government.
Laboso ,who was presiding over the sitting as deputy speaker, was splashed with water by opposition MPs in the National Assembly as Parliament turned chaotic.
In fact, in the run-up to the 2013 general elections, her rivals sarcastically referred to her as ‘Cheplemindet’ (Luo Lady).
Laboso went ahead to stamp a starring development record that saw her get reelected in the general election after she ditched ODM for Deputy President William Ruto'sUnited Republican Party.