Linah Kilimo

Linah Jebii Kilimo (born October 22, 1963) was an MP for Marakwet East constituency from 2002 to 2012. She first ventured into politics in 1997 by contesting the parliamentary seat on a KANU ticket, but lost to John Kiptoo Marrirmoi during the party primaries. She defected to Charity Ngilu's SDP but her campaign didn't gather sufficient momentum because of KANU's dominance in the region. However, she managed to unseat Marrirmoi in the 2002 general elections on a NARC ticket.

In 2005, she opposed the Constitutional Referendum, a de facto vote of no confidence in the Kibaki government. When the government lost the referendum vote, she was removed from the Cabinet alongside high-profile politicians such as Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka.

The defeat of the government marked the birth of Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), the largest political party (as at 2013 general elections). She was reluctant to join the newly formed party (ODM) possibly because of her experience in the way party nominations are conducted. Indeed, in 2007 she defended her seat on a KENDA ticket, thus, avoiding any party nominations.

Her tactic of avoiding party nominations paid off because she managed to retain her parliamentary seat. When ODM held its primary nominations in the constituency, the results were disputed, leading to a bitter rivalry between the supporters of Sammy Tangus and Charles Yano. The former was given the ODM ticket while the latter defected to ODM-K. It is believed that a significant number of Yano's supporters switched allegiance to Kilimo just to "prevent" Tangus from winning the general elections.

Although Kilimo lost her seat in the 2013 elections, she is still a force to be reckoned with. In fact, if it were not because of a 'spoiler' running in her stronghold, she would have retained the seat.

Major Achievements

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