PARTY leaders are to blame for the low number of women elected representatives, said Hannah Yeoh.

“From my experience, the number is low because not enough get nominated by their parties, and not because there is a shortage of women leaders,” the deputy women, family and community development minister told the Dewan Rakyat today.

She said parties should not merely allocate seats for women candidates, but must ensure that the seats are winnable.

“Don’t just give difficult seats to women candidates.”

According to Election Commission data, only 75 women, or 10.92% of the total number of candidates, were nominated for parliamentary seats in the 14th general election, compared to 612 men.

At the state level, said Yeoh, just 176 women (10.69%) were fielded as candidates, compared to 1,470 men.

She was responding to Siti Zailah Mohd Yusoff (PAS-Rantau Panjang), who asked why there are so few women elected representatives in the country.

Earlier, Yeoh said Malaysia ranked 104th out of 144 countries in the 2017 Global Gender Gap Index.

“Malaysia’s score in the women’s political empowerment category was only 0.058 out of 1. In comparison, the score for women’s education was 0.991, almost reaching gender parity.

“But, we expect our score to be higher next year, following the appointment of Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail as Malaysia’s first woman deputy prime minister.”

She added that increasing the number of women in decision-making roles requires effort from political parties.

“Although the ministry’s objective is to increase women’s participation in 13 sectors, including politics, to 30%, there are no plans to legislate it in the federal constitution for now.”

Yeoh said there are five women in the current cabinet, compared with just three previously.

She said of the 222 MPs now, 32, or 14.41%, are women, whereas previously, there were only 23 (10.4%). – November 26, 2018.