Activists hail Yeoh’s call for winnable seats for women

There are now 32 women parliamentarians, an increase from the previous 23 out of 222. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: Women leaders and rights activists have welcomed the call by Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister Hannah Yeoh for parties to give female candidates winnable seats to boost women’s political representation in the country.

The Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) said the debate over whether to field female candidates usually revolved around the question of merit.

“However, we must recognise that women have merit; the issue is that their merit is often overlooked.

“Therefore, measures to promote women’s representation in politics serve to overcome these barriers and to level the playing field for women to enter politics,” WAO communications officer Tan Heang-Lee told FMT.She added that women must be represented in both houses of Parliament as well as in state assemblies.

She urged political parties to field more women candidates, saying at least 30% of candidates should be women. She also agreed with Yeoh that they should be fielded in winnable seats.

Speaking in the Dewan Rakyat yesterday, Yeoh had said women’s involvement in politics was still too low. She said the problem was not a lack of leaders but rather a lack of seats given by the party leadership.

Maria Chin Abdullah.

“This is a gatekeeper problem. There are just not enough seats being given to women,” the Segambut MP said.

Vocal rights activist Maria Chin Abdullah told FMT there was nothing wrong with women being given winnable seats.

“It is about power positions,” the Petaling Jaya MP said. “Women are starting on different footing. They have to fight for seats and overcome gatekeepers who don’t understand what a fair game means.

“It means picking good ones, even if it means letting go of those who held the position for many terms. Are the gatekeepers and mostly male leaders willing to do that, including for their own kind?”

On Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) manifesto pledge of a 30% quota for women’s representation in Cabinet, Maria said the promise was made because women were often excluded.

“Women face greater discrimination and are excluded from the decision-making process and access to resources,” she added.

Goh Siu Lin.

Goh Siu Lin, who became the first woman to head the Kuala Lumpur Bar Committee last year, said the decision to “discriminate” against women candidates was an unconscious one, born of years of dominance by men in political parties.

“It is already challenging for a woman to run for office. The next hurdle is whether she can be successful,” the women’s rights activist said.

“If party leaders are sincere about ensuring greater women’s political participation, then a female candidate should be supported and fielded in a constituency which optimises her chances of victory.”

However, independent rights activist Wathshlah Naidu disagreed with the way Yeoh had phrased her call.

“I would agree that assigning tough seats is not necessarily the best way to achieve the required results. But I would not phrase it as ‘winnable seats’ like Yeoh did.”

She suggested the adoption of an affirmative action plan that would ensure equality in seats allocated and positions filled.

Yeoh, who became the country’s first woman speaker for the Selangor state assembly in 2013, said Malaysia was ranked 104th out of 144 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2017 Gender Gap Index, with a political empowerment score of 0.058 out of 1, which is very low compared to the education score of 0.991.

However, she believed the political empowerment score would rise drastically this year, citing the appointment of a woman as the deputy prime minister.

She said the number of women ministers had risen from three to five, while the number of women MPs had risen from 23 out of 222 MPs previously to 32 MPs.

As for female representation in the state legislative assemblies, she said the number had risen from 57 to 58 out of 505 state assemblymen.

At Malaysia’s Universal Periodic Review by the United Nations, a representative from Putrajaya said Malaysia had succeeded in reaching its 30% women quota. Malaysia now has 35.8% of women in decision-making positions in the public sector. -FMT