Wanita Umno’s Nurulhidayah pushes for greater female involvement and winnable seats moving forward
The Exco Wanita Umno argued that more women need to be involved in politics and in decision-making at the national level to ensure social stability and advancement towards a balanced and developed nation.
KUALA LUMPUR - Datuk Nurulhidayah Ahmad Zahid, daughter of Umno president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, has pleaded to Umno's top brass to place more women candidates in the 16th General Election (GE16).
The Exco Wanita Umno argued that more women need to be involved in politics and in decision-making at the national level to ensure social stability and advancement towards a balanced and developed nation.
She said the Umno leadership must ensure that more women become representatives, candidates, and ministers in the future, adding that having more women would complement the men when it comes to leadership and administration.
"This is not a matter of gender politics but an issue of our economic assets.
"It's not that men cannot make good policies, but when women are involved at the highest levels, we complement male leadership.
"We (Wanita Umno) are not demanding much, just place us in winnable seats. Let the men take on the more challenging positions because, according to natural and human logic, men are stronger," she joked as the crowd laughed.
Nurulhidayah said this while delivering her speech at the Umno General Assembly held in the World Trade Centre today.
She further stressed that if women were not fully empowered, it would just be a 'waste of strength'.
"We believe that if women like us are not fully empowered and are only seen in a few segments without involving us in every layer of decision-making, it will be challenging to become a developed nation.
“Half of our strength will be wasted just like that," she said.
Nurulhidayah went to say that there will be no waste of talent if there were more opportunities for women to join politics, become candidates and placing them in winnable seats.
She coyly said the reason why women should be placed in easy and winnable seats more than men was because by logic an nature, men was stronger and more capable to “fight it all out” compared to women.
She also demanded that the top leadership place a Wanita candidate for the Mahkota by-election as it was traditionally held by a woman and the incumbent was from Wanita.
The Mahkota state seat is vacant following the death of its incumbent Datuk Sharifah Azizah Syed Zain, 63, on Aug 2.
