Woman candidates prove to be frontrunners in Malaysia

Sunday's general election results in Malaysia show that not only did women voters make a significant contribution to supporting secularism and moderate Islam, but most female candidates won well.

As election experts have noted, women candidates stand a better chance of winning - even against influential male contenders - because 52 per cent of the 10.3 million-strong electorate are women, and they take the trouble to vote.

Even the opposition Parti Islam se-Malaysia (PAS), which argues that a Muslim woman must wear a veil and her career should be confined to homemaking, for the first time fielded nine women among its 98 candidates. Only seven PAS candidates won and two were women.

'Women voters recognised our efforts although we did not bring major change,' said the Democratic Action Party's Chong Eng, a parliamentary member who was returned with a greater margin. The government's women candidates easily defeated several prominent PAS leaders.

The only winner among the 58 candidates fielded from the National Justice Party was a woman - Wan Azizah Ismail. The youngest member of parliament is 27-year-old Fong Poh Kuang of the Democratic Action Party and she won by staggering 12,000 vote majority.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who is forming his cabinet in seclusion, was quick to promise more than token representation by women in his new cabinet.

But feminists say the number of representatives in parliament is dismal.