THE process to get more women into politics or increase the quota of women in the electoral system to 30% should be done gradually, assemblyman Yeo Bee Yin said.

The Damansara Utama representative also said it was important to field quality candidates as those elected or political leaders usually clung on to power for a long time and this could be addictive.

“Why it must be incremental? If you do a reform and you want 30% straight away, from 10% you go to 30%, how do you get the women candidates?

“If this thing is not incremental and assuming that we don’t get good candidates when we have the transformation, what is going to happen is you get a substandard 30% from now until 20 years later.

“(And) you have a political structure whereby you actually give the advantage to the first movers… in the end you deprive the next generation of good women talent to fill the space,” she told a forum on Proposing Women-Only Additional Seats (WOAS).

She said having more women in politics was not only about human rights but more for the betterment of the country.

“When we talk about more women in politics or more women representation… we are talking about a better nation. Because when women are empowered, men and children have better lives.

She also said a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would not necessarily grow if it had gender equality as it could be the other way round where gender equality came after, giving Japan as example.

“We can also be a rich country without women being part of it but we can also be a country with women being a big part of it, but I believe you can be a richer country when you have more women participating,” she said.

She also pointed out Japan’s aging population problem, where it needed to increase women participation in the labour market.

Yeoh also suggested that the government have institutionalised funding to encourage more women nominations during elections.

“For example, women candidates get RM50,000. The money itself will get some parties to nominate more women,“she said.

Other speakers at the forum organised by Penang Women’s Development Corporation and Penang Institute were Dr Wong Chin Huat and lawyer Syahredzan Johan. – May 20, 2017.