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Projek 30% began as a campaign to persuade political parties to field at least 30% women candidates by the next general election, and now it has entered a new phase. Civil society groups behind the campaign have drafted a proposed Gender Parity Bill and begun briefing MPs on how the 30% target could be mandated by law. On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Ayesha Sofia Faiz, Programme Officer at EMPOWER, which is one of the civil society groups driving Projek 30%.
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00:00Hello and good evening. I'm Melissa Idris. Welcome to Consider This. This is the show
00:15where we want you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of the day. Project
00:2030% or Project 30% began as a campaign to persuade political parties to field at least
00:2730% of women candidates by the next general election. Today it's entered a new phase of
00:35campaigning. Civil society groups behind the campaign have drafted a proposed gender parity
00:41bill or gender parity in political representation bill and have begun briefing MPs and the
00:50parliamentary select committees on how the 30% target could be mandated by law. Joining us on
00:57the show today to tell us more about it is Aisha Sophia Faiz who is the program officer
01:02at Empower which is one of the civil society groups driving Project 30%. Aisha thank you so much for
01:08being on the show with me today. So let's talk about this gender parity in political representation act.
01:15The bill has now been drafted so talk us through or walk us through how the bill could operationalize
01:22the 30% target. What are the mechanisms that are being proposed. All right thank you so much Melissa for
01:30having us on. So before I get into the mechanisms of the bill which we're also calling Akta Project
01:3830% or Akta Project 30% I just wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about why we are even doing
01:47this to begin with. So as your viewers may know women are severely underrepresented in the political sphere.
01:55The numbers right now sit at something like 13.5% of women in the Dewan Rakyat
02:01and there are various percentages in the various state assemblies. I think the highest is Johor in the 20s
02:08and the lowest are some of the eastern states.
02:10And there's also not very many women in the Dewan Negara as well. So the reason we believe that this
02:18is important is because women make up 50% of the population in Malaysia and women suffer disproportionately
02:24from a variety of issues including sexual and gender-based violence as well as sort of difficulty
02:32and challenges in accessing things like vocational education, STEM education. There's difficulty accessing
02:39reproductive and sexual health in fact. And there's also of course a wage gap that women are subject to.
02:48So with all this in mind, it's clear that these issues will not be addressed to their full extent
02:55if there is not significant female representation in politics. And we've seen that in something like
03:01the Antisexual Harassment Act. It took 20 years from inception to when it was finally made into law in 2022
03:09for a fairly extremely important act to be to be made into law. So imagine the progress that could
03:18have been made if we had simply had more women and if parties had more political will to fill more
03:23candidates in that time, how many sort of cases of sexual harassment could have been addressed in that
03:27time. So I want to speak, that's what I wanted to mention in terms of why we need it. And as you mentioned,
03:34Empower is one of the many organisations that's working on Project 30%. We've worked really closely
03:39as well with the Association of Women Lawyers who were instrumental in drafting this bill. And we've
03:44had tremendous support from Bursae, CSO Platform for Reform, and our friends at Joint Action Group for
03:50Gender Equality and Martabat PJ. So to answer your question about the key mechanisms of the GPPRA or the ACTA
04:00Project 30%. It's key that I mentioned to your audience that this bill is a standalone law. So it
04:09does not derogate any of the existing Elections Act or the Election Offences Act. It could be read sort of
04:16together with those if necessary. So it's a standalone law. It clearly sets out an aspiration for all
04:24political parties to field at least 30% women candidates by the next general election, which is
04:30GE 16. And it covers all elections. So from federal elections to state elections, and maybe one day if we
04:37have local council elections again, perhaps those as well. In terms of the mechanisms, sort of the clearest
04:46part of this bill is that we have something called Dana Project Tiga Pulparatos, which is an incentive fund
04:51to sort of simplify as I lay it out. It involves essentially three stages of payouts.
05:00So the first stage of the payout would be when a female candidate is nominated. So a particular party,
05:09if they manage to achieve at least 30% women candidates for that particular election,
05:15they will basically be eligible to receive a certain amount of money. And that money goes specifically
05:25to the female candidate that is in the running for the election. So whether or not that candidate
05:32wins or loses, that money is hers to use towards her campaign funds, and obviously in her particular
05:39constituency, and obviously within all the rules and regulations of the Elections Act. So that's the
05:45first payment that would be made. And that's a one-off payment that would happen, you know, only during
05:50the election cycle. And then assuming that candidate manages to win her seat, payouts two and three would
05:58happen simultaneously. So payout number two would be a certain amount of money given to the candidate,
06:04who has now become an MP or an ADUN, for her to use in her constituency for programs that would empower
06:11women in her constituency, perhaps with a leaning towards political empowerment, to improve capacity
06:18building for women. And the third payout would go towards the party themselves, with the money being
06:26earmarked specifically to be used for women empowerment activities, to increase political acumen, to increase
06:33political knowledge and know-how of the women in that party. So those two payments would be made
06:40sort of a yearly in the beginning of the year. And they would be only dependent on that particular
06:49candidate winning. Right. Aisha, quick question. So the payouts for reaching 30%, a payout for each
06:56candidate, that female candidate that's been field, this is the incentive. So this is the carrot. And I want to
07:01talk about the stake a bit later. But first, Dana Project 30%, where is that money going to come from?
07:07So that money will come from the national budget. So obviously our, all of our figures are just ballpark
07:16and we would have to, all those details would have to be worked out in the, in the eventual. But we
07:22approximate it to be between 25 to 33 million ringgit, which is between 0.015 to 0.02% of the national,
07:33of the GDP. And we propose that it'd be indexed to the GDP so that if our GDP goes up, which hopefully
07:40will, that money will go up as well. And of course, if it goes down, that means it would go down as well.
07:44But we, we propose that there is a floor of a floor of the fund, that there's a minimum amount
07:50amount that the fund is. So that would be where the money would come from.
07:55Okay. So I really like this incentive for political parties, because it's also part of
08:00political financing as well. Talk to me about the stick in the equation. What enforcement measures
08:07might be built into this law if parties fail to, to meet that 30% threshold? Okay. So, um,
08:14the Dana Project 30% is one mechanism. The other mechanism is, uh, that we would require all political
08:26parties to submit a report to the EC, the election commission, and also the ROS, uh, detailing
08:36what the percentage of women are in their national ex-co, their state and key committees,
08:41how many women they actually managed to field, which seats those women were in, and also whatever
08:47existing policies they have on gender equality within their party, if there are any policies at
08:53all in their constitution, uh, essentially serving as a report card for every political party in terms of
09:01gender, gender equality. The, the point of that is so that it serves as a form of accountability for
09:07political parties. Uh, and then that information should be, will be publicly available to everyone,
09:14so that everybody can, can, um, find out if their political party, uh, is actually committing to
09:22gender equality, or if it's just lip service that they sort of give every international women's day,
09:27every, or every election year. And, you know, they would be graded on from a scale of, you know,
09:31green being, you know, doing the most, doing everything well, to red meaning a lot of work, and, um,
09:38that would help everybody stay informed. It would also create a sense of accountability with parties
09:44that they perhaps might feel, you know, that they need to keep up a certain kind of standard. It, it would allow
09:50there to be a kind of social pressure, uh, and it would allow civil society to have something to talk
09:55about and, and broach with parties as well. Right, to keep, um, keep them on their toes, keep us vigilant
10:02of, of their progress. Uh, talk to me a little bit, so I understand that, um, project The Capital
10:06Brothers has been engaging with the Parliamentary Select Committee, has been engaging with some MPs
10:11to build, uh, I guess to brief them about this proposed legislation. How, how have they responded so far?
10:18What's been their feedback to you? They have been, um, extremely gracious and generous in,
10:22in inviting us to have many, many consultations with them. I think we've had, uh, somewhere around
10:28four, um, in which we, we sort of presented our ideas, we presented our memorandum, and we went back
10:35and forth with them on how we could improve it. Um, they gave us a lot of valuable feedback. Um, and
10:41one of the key things that came out of our meetings with them was that there was a little bit of concern
10:47with having, uh, a sort of stronger stick component in the bill. So while the, the, the report card
10:56aspect of it, the reporting aspect is there for us to be, for the political parties to be accountable,
11:02there was a little bit of concern with having sanctions, just because we, we didn't want there
11:07to be, uh, sort of too much controlling of where poli, where political parties get to put their
11:14candidates. So the PSSC has been extremely, um, candid with us. They've been extremely helpful
11:22and they actually did help us, uh, secure a town hall with, um, quite a number of parliamentarians that
11:30we had, and we were able to present it again and get a wider audience and get a wider buy-in from
11:35the MPs. Right. Do you think that this will go down well with the public? So is it about getting
11:41buy-in from politicians and from political parties, or is it also about getting public buy-in? How do
11:47you think the public will respond to it? I think that, um, when it comes down to it,
11:52I feel confident that the public will be interested in this because, um, having this bill
11:59actually become a law is something that will be good for all of society. And I think that
12:06there has been a lot of, uh, not, not a lot, but there has been some sort of pushback, uh,
12:12when we speak to people about it, about asking why the need for a quota. Um, but it's not a quota in
12:20the sense of a handout, but rather it's an sort of affirmative action to allow us to get to a point
12:26where we want gender equality because a lot of, a lot of studies and research, um, have shown that
12:33a gender equal society is a better society for, for everybody. I think the top 14 countries in the
12:40world with the best GDP are also all, um, gender equal societies. So both, both, uh, getting, um,
12:49buy-in from both, uh, our political figures, from our MPs, from our lawmakers is extremely important,
12:55but we also want that buy-in from the public and I'm sure that they will be supportive when it comes
13:01to it, we hope. So we are, I think we're in the kind of final, like, uh, for GE, uh, 16. So we're
13:08in the lead up now. I would, I would characterize 2026 as the lead up to GE 16. Is the idea to get the
13:14bill passed before the next general elections, uh, or is this really more of a long game? So talk to me
13:22about what happens next for, uh, project 30% for GE 16 and beyond. All right. So we are keeping our,
13:29our eyes on the prize, which is GE 16. Uh, the, the foundation of our bill is that we have all
13:35political parties fielding at least 30% candidates by GE 16. So our, our aim is to get this sort of, uh,
13:44under the wire by the next general election or just before. Um, having said that, of course,
13:49we acknowledge that, um, sometimes the, the legislative process can be its own, uh, thing
13:56that takes time. Um, however, we have been having a lot of one-on-one meetings with political parties
14:02from both opposition and government, uh, as well as independence. Um, and they have all been very
14:10receptive. Of course, there's a, there's a spectrum of, of buy-in, but we are continuing to, to lobby and
14:16speak to political parties, uh, with, with the hope that even if this doesn't become a law by then,
14:23they will commit to this and take this up, uh, this idea of having at least 30% women candidates
14:28by the next general election. Aisha, thank you so much for joining me on the show today and telling
14:34us more about Akta 30%. Aisha Sofia Faiz is there from Empower. We're going to take a quick break here
14:40and consider this. We'll be back with more on this topic. Stay tuned. We'll be right back.
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