Call for more women in Sabah govt after polls

The new state government formed after the Sabah election will be urged to appoint women to fill the nominated assemblymen posts.

This will make up for the lack of women candidates fielded in the polls.

Sabah Women’s Action-Resource Group (Sawo) and the movement Rakyat Is Bos said women comprised not even 10% of the candidate list, which featured 43 women and 404 men.

The groups pointed out that Article 14 of the Sabah State Constitution, however, allows the state government to recommend the appointment of no more than six nominated members by the Yang di-Pertua Negeri.

The caretaker state government Warisan Plus had previously appointed five such members but all were men.

“We noticed not a single party contesting in the upcoming Sabah state election has met the international benchmark to nominate at least 30% of women candidates.

“In fact, only eight of the 20 parties contesting nominated 10% or more of women candidates.

“This results in only 43 women candidates out of (the total) 447 candidates or 9.6%.

“We urge all parties to commit to, upon forming government, using the power to appoint women as nominated assemblymen to remedy the gender imbalance,” they said in a joint statement.

According to the Election Commission (EC), out of Sabah’s total 1,124,598 voters who will go to the polls this Saturday, 562,093 are female and 562,505 are male.

Sawo and Rakyat Is Bos reasoned that without the participation of women, the legislative system in Sabah lacked diverse backgrounds and life experiences, which would enable legislators to shape policies for the advancement of minorities groups affected.

“We believe that having women involved in legislative decision-making has an enormous impact as it creates a means to reform and revise discriminatory laws against girls and women,” they added.

Sawo and Rakyat Is Bos also painted a grim picture of the future of the new Sabah state assembly.

Unless voters were willing to consider female candidates from the third parties or among the independents, the number of women elected representatives would be at most 13, or 17.8% of the Sabah state assembly.

If six female nominated assemblymen were added to the 13, then the female percentage in the state assembly would be raised to 24.1%.

However, if six more men were to be nominated, the female percentage would further drop to 16.5%, they said.

The Joint Action for Gender Equality (JAG) group also called on the upcoming Sabah state government to appoint women as nominated representatives in the assembly after the elections.

In a joint statement endorsed by 11 women’s groups, JAG said the underrepresentation of women at any level of governance and decision-making would result in a democratic deficit.

“It has been proven time and again that diverse groups make better decisions.

“JAG believes that the lack of women candidates is clearly not due to the lack of capable women politicians in Sabah but the discriminatory attitudes towards women entrenched within Malaysian society.

“Despite numerous public commitments by political leaders over the years to ensure greater participation, women continue to be sidelined,” said JAG.

These actions were inconsistent with Malaysia’s obligations under Article 7 of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (Cedaw), which Malaysia ratified in 1995.

The Article called on the authorities to take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the political life of the country.

In February 2018, the Cedaw committee in its recommendations to the government had highlighted the under-representation of women in politics and called on the authorities to adopt measures.

“Despite this, two years on, the government has yet to take effective steps to implement this recommendation, as highlighted in this Sabah state elections,” said JAG.

We believe that having women involved in legislative decision-making has an enormous impact as it creates a means to reform and revise discriminatory laws against girls and women. Sawo and Rakyat Is Bos