Change that They Should be Talking About

My hubby likes to say that there is nothing uglier than four men in a car. I'm not always sure about that but when I took a look at the winners of the UMNO elections yesterday, I have to say that there aren't many things uglier than 24 men in a Supreme Council. And there are some real beauties in that line-up! Noh, Bung, Reezal....what a landscape we women have to put up with! Are puffy cheeks and sleazy eyes a requirement to be voted in?

Luckily the one woman, Datuk Dr. Norraesah, is neither puffy-cheeked nor sleazy-eyed. Phew! At least she hasn't let the side down, physically at least.

This morning I had a meeting with one of the foreign observers to the UMNO GA, the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh, Dr. Dipu Moni. This was interesting to me from many standpoints. For one thing, she's a woman and her boss, Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh, is also a woman. She's not just a medical doctor but also a lawyer. In comparison, our guys are hard put to be qualified in one field, let alone two! And let's not talk about when we will ever have a woman as Foreign Minister, let alone Prime Minister!



Dr. Moni has a long history of activism and in politics. She's bright, well-spoken and knows her subject. One of the issues we discussed was Bangladeshi migrant workers. Her country sends many workers overseas and is very dependent on them for foreign exchange. Many of these workers sell everything they own to pay for their tickets, documentation and agents' fees to get work overseas and then toil away to earn enough money to support their families back home. Some don't make it home, some find themselves on the wrong side of the law and get deported and some get conned by everybody. The impact of what happens to them is huge on their families, communities and country.

Recently Malaysia decided to cancel the visas of some 55,000 Bangladeshi workers who were about to fly here to work. Dr. Moni understood the rationale behind this since we are facing a recession. But it was a disaster for the workers who had forked out a total of the equivalent of USD200million in order to get those jobs, none of which they can get refunded for. Somebody somewhere did get the money however, but it's doubtful that either the Malaysian or the Bangladeshi economy benefitted from it. All that happened is that 55,000 very poor Bangladeshis and their families became destitute. We may not feel at responsible for that but the fact is that there were some Malaysians who were involved in causing that destitution.

Dr. Moni and I also talked about politics. She was very surprised to learn that most of our political parties have different wings for women, youth and...what are they, princes and princesses? Few political parties around the world have that. This is why in many parts of the world, including in those countries which we think of as more backward than us, women have an equal chance of becoming presidents of their parties as well as Prime Ministers. Dr. Moni was shocked to find that the main UMNO party has no women in it. Although women can stand for election to the Supreme Council, they are seen as marginal and token. In the case of this year's elections, what could 1/25 be but token?

Though perhaps that is also the fault of Wanita. They should have banded together to ensure that as many women stood as candidates to the Supreme Council as possible, and then gone all out to campaign for these women. But no, I suspect each candidate had to individually offer themselves and then campaign alone. How to get many seats like that?

So perhaps when UMNO talks about change, the first change they have to make is dissolve the wings and merge them all into the main party. This will put everyone, male or female, young or old, on an equal footing. Then there should be a quota system within the Supreme Council which allows for better diversity. For example, 50% of the seats should go to women to reflect their membership of UMNO. Out of that, half should be below age 35. Similarly with the men; 50% of seats and half should be below 35. Then whether they are voted in as representatives of different states or whatever will be up to the delegates. I can assure you that changes like these will also bring about a change in thinking, simply because they have to compete with a much larger group of people for less seats.

The next big change is in the voting system itself. UMNO cannot call itself democratic if voting is done by only 2900 delegates who purport to represent the entire membership. Thus there has to be some way in which all three million members can vote for all the positions. Some people may say that is unwieldy but then the General Election is able to organise much more voters than that.

At the moment, you get some real anomalies. For instance that uncouth character Bung Mokhtar could not possibly have gotten 1500+ votes if the women did not also vote for him. This is the man who refused to apologise for the insulting remarks he made about women in Parliament. Now imagine if he had to canvass support from 1.5 million women! Don't you think he's going to be a bit more careful with what he says?

Of course, the biggest change of all is for UMNO to completely remake itself into a non-race-based party. But that won't happen unless all the other race-based parties also remade themselves. Then everybody gets to stand for and vote for every post. Only then will everybody get an equal chance at becoming PM, regardless of race, sex or age. Basically UMNO cannot change without larger structural change in our political system.

But it's not a bad idea to start with structural changes within the party itself. In fact, these changes should be within all parties whichever side they may be on. I would consider it a major breakthrough if a non-Malay woman becomes head of PKR or a non-Chinese woman becomes head of DAP. I'm not however holding my breath for any such thing in PAS.

These sorts of changes are what is happening in politics all over the world now. We have to make these changes or be embarrassed when foreign observers come here and are puzzled by our archaic system.