THE Penang government has launched the Top-Up Women-Only Additional Seats (TWOAS) initiative to increase women’s representation in the state legislative assembly.
Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow said the initiative would ensure at least 30% women’s representation in the august House, and it would be done through nomination if necessary.
“In other words, TWOAS will only be implemented if the percentage of women elected representatives is less than 30%.
“For example, if there are less than 12 assemblywomen elected out of the 40 state seats in Penang, then we will implement TWOAS to ‘top up’ the percentage to 30%.
“If there are six assemblywomen elected after a state election, like what we have now; we will need to ‘top up’ by nominating another nine assemblywomen without going through the election process.
“If there is no woman elected representative after a state election, it will need an additional 18 appointed women representatives to achieve the 30% quota; which will increase the total number of state representatives in the House to 58,” Chow gave another example during the media conference at his office in Komtar today.
Chow said the system had been implemented by the Sabah and Terengganu governments, and was recently passed in the Pahang state assembly.
“However, what we are proposing is different from the other states.
“There are two important points in the proposal that the Penang government would like to stress.
“Firstly, the basis of the nomination will be according to the percentage of the popular votes obtained by the (political) parties through their candidates who took part in the particular election.
“For example, if the Government obtained 60% of the popular votes and the Opposition receives 40%, the Government is entitled to nominate 60% and the Opposition 40% of the number of nominated members.
“This means TWOAS will benefit and is fair to all parties, be it the Government or the Opposition,” Chow said.
Secondly, Chow said the TWOAS women candidates, who would be nominated by their respective parties, must have undergone the gender advocacy workshop.
“The TWOAS candidate list must also show diversity in terms of ethnicity, age and others,” he said.
Chow said to achieve the 30% women’s representation in the state legislative assembly under the TWOAS initiative, it would require amending the State Constitution.
“In addition, a new enactment or the amendment to the existing enactment will be required to look at the mechanism, rights and privileges of the nominated assemblywomen.
“The definition of the membership of the House would have to be amended to recognise the role or additional number of assemblymen through the nomination system,” he said.
A TWOAS special committee, led by Penang Social Development and Non-Islamic Religious Affairs Committee chairman Chong Eng, has been set up.
The special committee is planning to hold stakeholders’ engagement sessions early next year to gather public views on the matter.
Chow said the TWOAS initiative is scheduled to be tabled in the year-end state legislative assembly session next year.
Chong Eng said she was very proud of the Penang government for striving to increase the number of women’s representation.
“Penang leads again. We want to thank the Chief Minister and the executive council members for supporting the TWOAS initiative. We will need a bigger support from the public when we conduct the stakeholders’ engagement sessions,” she said.
Also present were state Health, Rural Development, Agrotech and Food Security Committee chairman Dr Norlela Ariffin, Sungai Pinang assemblyman Lim Siew Khim, Penang Women’s Development Corporation (PWDC) chief executive officer Ong Bee Leng and members of the TWOAS special committee – Datuk Rohana Abdul Ghani, Dr Cecilia Ng and Karen Lai.
Story by Christopher Tan
Pix by Law Suun Ting
Video by Chan Kok Kuan