Kenyan politician Joyce Cherono Abonyo (née Laboso; 25 November 1960 – 29 July 2019) held the office of second governor of Bomet County from 2017 until her passing on July 29, 2019. Prior to winning the governorship, she served as a member of parliament for the Sotik constituency.
She has two boys and was wed to Dr. Edwin Abonyo. She was forced to renounce her husband’s name and go back to Laboso in 2008 since her marriage to a guy from a different community gave her critics more reason to disparage her throughout her political career.
In a by-election that took place on September 25, 2008, Joyce Laboso was chosen to represent the Sotik Constituency in the Kenyan Parliament. After her sister Lorna Laboso perished in an aircraft accident, she took over. As the Jubilee Party’s nominee, she defeated 11 other candidates with 23,880 votes, 10,000 more than the votes cast for her nearest rival, retired Brigadier Alexander Sitienei (a former Daniel arap Moi adviser), who earned 13,843 votes.
She served as the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly’s co-president.
She was a commissioner of the National Commission on Gender and Development in addition to being a lecturer at Egerton University’s Department of Language and Linguistics.
Along with Governor Charity Ngilu of Kitui County and Governor Anne Waiguru of Kirinyaga County, Laboso was one of the three inaugural female governors in Kenya. The incumbent, Isaac Rutto, who had joined NASA Coalition, was defeated by Laboso. Later, Rutto publicly acknowledged his defeat.
Before going to Kaplong Girls Secondary School to pursue her O-Levels, Laboso attended Kaplong and Molo Primary Schools. Later on, she enrolled at The Kenya High School, where she took her A level exams.
In 1991, Laboso received his initial cancer diagnosis. Laboso’s spouse Edwin claims that she lived with cancer for 28 years. In March 2019, the illness badly affected her once more. Sadly, the physicians told the family that not much could be done to preserve the governor’s life despite their requests for medical care in both the UK and India.
Later, on July 29, 2019, she passed away at Nairobi Hospital from cancer. On August 2, 2019, a requiem ceremony was performed for her, and on August 3, 2019, her burial took place at her Fort Ternan, Kisumu County, residence.
