GE15: Pit against each other, few women won seats in national polls
HISHAMUDDIN AYUB
SHAH ALAM – The 15th General Election (GE15) Monitoring Committee (PantauPRU15) expresses its sadness and disappointment over the low candidacy of women participating in the the November 19 national polls compared to previous elections.
In a statement issued today, the election watchdog said GE15 saw only 30 women or 13.5 per cent elected as members of parliament nationwide.
This was a decrease compared to GE14 whereby a total of 33 members of parliament were women or at 14.9 per cent.
“The breakdown by coalition and party are: 15 from Pakatan Harapan (PH), nine from Perikatan Nasional (PN), five from Gabungan Parti Sarawak (GPS), three BN and one from Parti Warisan Sabah (Warisan) and others.
“Although there was an increase in the number of women candidates contested with 127 people involving 103 seats contested at the Parliamentary level however only 23.6 per cent were chosen in 30 seats,” the statement said.
PantauPRU15 pointed out that there were a few factors that caused the total number women candidates to decrease with the first due to them clashing among each other.
“A total of 43 women candidates contested among themselves in 19 seats while the clash between two candidates happened in 16 seats; three candidates in two seats were pit against each other and in some seats there were five candidates contesting against each other.
The outfit also discovered that A many women candidates were placed in difficult areas by the party they represented.
“It is clear that a lot of effort is needed to open up opportunities for national political leadership that are favourable to women.
“Even so, the women candidates who won in GE15 are talented, high-calibre and have a good achievements.
“All of them have the potential to contribute excellent leadership in the government that will be establish,” read the said.
