‘Women should make up 30pc of BN candidates fielded in GE14’

KUALA LUMPUR: The 14th General Election (GE14) should bring to the forefront more women candidates as their numbers in past elections were not encouraging.

Associate Professor Dr Noor Sulastry Yurni Ahmad of the Othman Yeop Abdullah Graduate School of Business, Universiti Utara Malaysia, said this was necessary for Barisan Nasional to keep its promise of women taking on more important roles.

She said this could be achieved by ensuring 30 per cent of its candidates were made up of women.

“In the 13th General Election, 10.36 per cent of women candidates were chosen to become members of parliament (MPs), which was 23 out of 222 MPs.

“Of this, 14MPs were from BN. GE14 is the right time for women to be given more opportunities, so that more of them will be involved in policymaking.

“There should be more women candidates from the Puteri Umno and Wanita Umno wings.

“These two wings have more members compared with other parties,” she told the New Straits Times.

She said besides contesting the parliamentary seats, women should be given the opportunity to contest state assembly seats.

Noor Sulastry said if a woman was not qualified to be a candidate in the general election, she could, instead, be given an opportunity to hold position at the local authority level.

“This will enable her to gain experience to be nominated in the future.”

She said opportunities should be given to new faces to contest so that the aim of increasing women representation could be achieved.

“If you look at the trend in the past two general elections, the people had no issues with a candidate’s sex as long as he or she could perform.”

She said the criteria taken into account was the candidate’s credibility, the situation and whether he or she was the right person.

This had influenced the number of women candidates.

In the 13th General Election, 10.36 per cent of women candidates were chosen to become members of parliament (MPs), which was 23 out of 222 MPs.

DR NOOR SULASTRY YURNI AHMAD

Universiti Utara Malaysia lecturer