Group sees red as women make up only 9% of Sabah election candidates

 

A coalition of women’s NGOs says only 43 of the 447 candidates in the Sabah election are female.

PETALING JAYA: A coalition of women’s NGOs has voiced disappointment over the lack of female candidates in the Sabah election.

Joint Action Group for Gender Equality (JAG), which includes NGOs from Sabah, says the lack of female candidates highlights the resistance to female political leadership in the country.

Citing Election Commission data, JAG said only 43 out of the 447 candidates, or 9%, running in the polls are female.

It said the women candidates include two from Umno, one from MCA, two from Perikatan Nasional and one from PBS.

“It also shows the ongoing discrimination and socio-cultural barriers that women still face within political institutions, which run contrary to Malaysia’s international legal obligations and commitments,” it said in a statement.

JAG said women’s equal participation and representation in decision-making is critical to the prioritising of women’s needs in housing, healthcare, education, transport and the economy.

It said Covid-19 made the participation of women in decision-making more important as women were among the hardest hit by the pandemic.

“JAG believes that the lack of women candidates is clearly not due to the lack of capable women politicians in Sabah but the discriminatory attitudes towards women entrenched within Malaysian society,” it said.

The group said the issue of under-representation of women in politics is not new and that this has been highlighted to the government as recently as 2018, yet no effective steps have been taken to address it.

It called on political parties to remedy this imbalance after Saturday’s polls by appointing women as nominated assemblymen and ensuring female representation in all decision-making processes at the state level. - FMT