Sabah urged to increase assemblywomen

KOTA KINABALU: Kapayan assemblywoman Jannie Lasimbang declared her full support of the ‘Top-Up Women Only Additional Seats (TWOAS)' initiative of the Penang state government.

In a press statement yesterday, the former Assistant Minister of Law and Native Affairs said TWOAS was a significant move and a much needed measure to increase women's representation in the state legislative assembly to a minimum critical mass of 30 percent.

"The TWOAS initiative is designed to ensure a minimum of 30 percent women's representation in the Penang State Assembly. It is a special measure which is only applicable when the number of elected women in the state assembly falls below 30 percent.

"This arrangement is permissible under the Eighth Schedule of the Federal Constitution, which allows state assemblies to have nominated seats," said Jannie.

To empower women, it is important to set a quota of 30 percent women's involvement to ensure that they too are policy and-decision makers, she said adding that it is unacceptable that only seven out of 73 elected assemblymen (ADUN) (9.6%) in Sabah are women.

"In Sabah, we have yet to achieve the national and international target of having 30 percent women in all levels of government and every effort must be made as soon as possible to do so.

"A minimum of 30 percent women should then be maintained, in light of the fact that women leaders are equally capable of driving the nation's development and progress.

"The good thing about TWOAS is that it does not disrupt the current system nor require a separate election. The set-up involves an upfront sharing of a TWOAS list of women nominees with a fixed sequence of preference from all parties taking part in the elections. Having a list will ensure transparency in the appointment process," she said.

Jannie said TWOAS seats will be allocated to all parties (including opposition parties) which have submitted their TWOAS candidate list, in accordance with the percentage of votes received by parties in the state election.

"TWOAS will provide political parties every incentive to produce a list of women candidates that otherwise they probably would not."

She echoed the sentiments and efforts of the Sabah Women Action Resource Group (SAWO), which had also called on the Sabah state government to adopt this system, and suggested that the existing Sabah nominated assembly persons be used for the TWOAS.