Calling for more female candidates: (From left) Fazar, Weerasena and Ngeow.
KOTA KINABALU: The upcoming Sabah state polls would be ideal ground for political parties to showcase their commitment to increasing women’s representation in the state assembly, say advocacy groups.
They said parties could do this by fielding more female candidates to address the gender imbalance.
Since 1990, the United Nations has set a target of 30% women in decision-making roles, a goal that Sabah has lagged far behind.
Currently, only three out of 25 MPs (12%) and six out of 73 state representatives (8.2%) are women.
“We hope Sabah will lead the way, especially with the state election looming. The call for 30% women’s representation in the state assembly is just a ‘base camp to Mount Everest’. It’s a hurdle we must overcome,” said Datin Fazar Arif, founder of the Pergerakan Orang Wanita Empowerment and Revolution (Power).
Speaking at the Top-up Women-Only Additional Seats in Sabah (TWOAS) workshop here, she said although women make up half of the population in Sabah, 91% of the policies and decision-making are controlled by men.
“Where are the women? Maybe it is not the lack of talent or opportunities given by political parties, but it could be that voters are not ready to vote for women,” said Fazar.
She said while men see gender representation as a non-issue, it actually affects everyone, hence the need to constantly address the subject.
The two-day workshop, titled ‘Enhancing Women’s Political Representation,’ was organised by Projek Stability and Accountability for Malaysia (Sama) in collaboration with Bait Al-Amanah and Power.
Advocates argued that a pragmatic approach, even if it falls short of the 30% goal, could have a significant impact.
“Even if we add six women now, that brings us to 15%. It’s still far from the target, but it’s progress,” said political analyst Prof Wong Chin Huat, who is Sunway University deputy head (strategy).
Currently, Sabah ranks ninth in terms of women representation in the state assembly, with Johor heading the list at 26.8% or with 15 women representatives, followed by Perak (20.3%, 12 reps), and Perlis (20%, three reps).
Terengganu holds the lowest spot with just 3.1% or one female representative in its state assembly.
In the 2020 Sabah state election, only 44 female candidates were fielded, or 9.6% of the overall 447 candidates. Of the number, six women won, of whom two were new faces, while 29 lost their deposits.
Bait Al-Amanah research director Benedict Weerasena said as of 2022, Malaysia ranked second-last in women’s representation across Asean, with only 13.5% of seats held by women.
Globally, Malaysia ranks 151st out of 193 countries.
“In Malaysia, women perform well in many sectors, except politics. It is not that we have a shortage of women with talents and capabilities, but there are insufficient males retiring from their political helms.
“I believe we need more women leaders to rise up and show that politics was never meant to be a male sport. It about diverse voices to ensure that policy-making is not dominated by just 50% of society, or men.
“It has to cover all aspects of society. We want diversity in our state assembly,” said Weerasena.
The groups pointed out that beyond patriarchy, the biggest barrier to women’s election as lawmakers is the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system, which favours male incumbents.
To address this, they proposed a Women-Only Additional Seats (WOAS) system, which would allocate six appointed seats in the Sabah legislature to parties based on their vote share, ensuring women’s representation.
“This would require a simple amendment to Article 14 of the Sabah constitution and new legislation to govern the operation of WOAS.
“The initiative could raise women’s representation to 7.6% in the Sabah assembly if implemented,” said Projek Sama convener Ngeow Chow Ping.
