Martha Karua mourns father Jackson Karua as Kenya enters defining march to 2027
People's Liberation Party leader Martha Karua
By: Jane Njeri
People’s Liberation Party leader Martha Karua has announced the death of her father Jackson Karua in Kirinyaga County.
The news came on Sunday, just moments after she had left his home after a family visit, turning what had been a day of hymn and prayer into one of mourning for one of Kenya’s most prominent political families. In a statement that was as personal as it was poignant, Karua said she and her siblings had spent time with their father, singing his favourite gospel hymn, unaware it would be their final chorus together.
“I went to Kirinyaga to visit my father. My siblings and I spent time with him and sang his favourite gospel hymn, never knowing it would be our last song together. On my way back to Nairobi, I received the news that my beloved father had breathed his last,” she said.
For Karua, who has built a four-decade career on principle and defiance, the loss is intimate and foundational. She described her father not as a political figure but as a teacher and moral compass, a man who believed in character before credentials.
“My father believed in me long before I had achieved anything worth celebrating. From my school days, through my career in law, and through the many chapters of my public life, he remained one of my strongest supporters, always proud, always encouraging, and always in my corner,” Karua noted.
“My father was a principled man, a teacher, and a man who believed deeply in the value of character, education, and doing what is right. But to us, above all, he was a loving father, steady, generous, and present.”
That steadiness now departs at a moment when Kenya itself enters a period of profound unsettlement. With eleven months to the August 2027 general election, the country is sliding into what is arguably its most consequential political transition since the 2010 constitution.
This will not be a routine election. It will be a referendum on the economic contract, on the credibility of the opposition, and on whether Kenya’s democracy can accommodate dissent without fracture. The Kenya Kwanza administration, elected in 2022 on a platform of bottom-up transformation, faces a restless electorate battered by the cost of living, debt repayments and youth unemployment. The opposition, fragmented and still searching for a unifying narrative after the 2022 loss, is attempting to reassemble under new formations like Karua’s People’s Liberation Party.
In that context, Karua’s personal loss carries political weight. She has positioned the PLP as a vehicle for clean governance and constitutional fidelity, values she directly attributes to her father. Sources close to the family told The Mt Kenya Times that Jackson Karua, a retired teacher from Kimunye village, instilled in his children an uncompromising belief in education as liberation, a theme that would later define his daughter’s advocacy for judicial independence and gender equity.
Tributes have poured in across the divide, a rare pause in a polarised arena. President William Ruto said in a condolence message that Mzee Jackson Karua raised a daughter who has served the nation with courage and integrity. Azimio leader Raila Odinga described him as a patriarch whose quiet sacrifice produced a leader of national stature, while Chief Justice Emeritus David Maraga praised the family for upholding dignity in public life.
That cross-party respect underscores what the next year will test. The 2027 campaign will be fought not just in rallies but in WhatsApp groups, in courtrooms, and in the streets where Gen Z has rewritten the rules of protest. It will demand candidates who can withstand scrutiny and families who can bear the cost of public life. Karua’s reflection that grief has no age captures a truth many political households will confront as the race intensifies.
“There is never really an age at which you are prepared to say goodbye to someone who has been part of your life from the very beginning,” she said. “We will each feel his absence in our own way, but we will also carry forward the lessons he gave us and the love that held our family together. I will miss his voice, his counsel, his encouragement, and the quiet reassurance of knowing that he was there.”
As burial preparations begin in Kirinyaga, Kenya’s political class would do well to heed the lesson of a teacher who never sought office but shaped one who did. In a season when noise will overwhelm signal, character will still count.
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