In a political environment crawling
with bushy-cheeked men in ill-fitting
suits yelling slogans and spewing
threats, Yvonne Khamati stood out
like a sore thump when she burst
into the limelight as a baby faced
elected member of the executive
committee of Ford Kenya in 2002.
At 21 years of age, she was the
youngest female in a position of
leadership in a political party.
That year, Yvonne ran for the
Makadara Constituency
parliamentary seat against an all-
male politically crowded field that
included Reuben Ndolo of the ‘weka
taya’ fame and was insulted at
rallies, roughed up and at some
point admitted to hospital after
suffering injuries in a campaign
scuffle.
Meteoric rise:
“Female politicians visited me in
hospital and said, ‘This is baptism
by fire. You will get used to it!’ I
realised such was the life of a
female in Kenya’s male dominated
politician arena,” Yvonne says.
Her meteoric rise from obscurity to
national limelight had tongues
wagging, especially when she bagged
a Foreign Service post as Deputy AU
ambassador following negotiations
by her party leader in 2005. Was
Musikari Kombo, the man who
negotiated her appointment, her
lover Twelve years on, and now
deployed as Kenya’s deputy
ambassador to Somalia, tongues are
still wagging.
From allegations of owning a private
jet, to dating Africa’s richest man
and having a tiff with former Prime
Minister Raila Odinga’s wife, Ida,
the rumours created around Yvonne
Khamati’s personal and professional
life read like a script out of popular
TV series Scandal.
“Some of the stories I hear about
myself just make me laugh. For
example, if I owned a private jet,
where would I park it You would
have seen it by now!” laughs the
diplomat.
“Rumours that I was dating Kombo
are the kind of puerile politics that
we must stop. Kombo is a mentor
and a friend. I went to school with
his children and his wife went to
school with my mother,” she
explains.
The rumours did not stop there.
Soon Kenyans on Twitter were
sharing rumours created by a man
named Douglas Mango stating that
the diplomat was seeing Africa’s
richest man Aliko Dangote.
“I don’t think Aliko has even been to
Cedars. I would know as it is in my
neighbourhood. Why would I be
publicly hanging out with him as a
senior diplomat I’d rather we deal
with real issues, not gossip from
Twitter generated by someone who
has since apologised,” she states.
At only 18 years old, Yvonne was
already flying the Kenyan flag high,
representing the youth in the Kyoto
Protocol negotiations at The Hague,
Netherlands, rubbing shoulders with
heads of states and governments and
setting a firm foundation for her
career in diplomacy.
When President Kibaki appointed her
ambassador in May 2007, she was
only 25 years old, making her the
youngest envoy in Africa.
