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Don’t fall for PKR’s sob story of a sexist agenda

So Selangor now has a menteri besar and he is not a woman. Azmin Ali has been chosen and has accepted the post by appointment of His Royal Highness the Sultan of Selangor and PKR is now saying it is “disappointed” with the palace’s treatment of its president, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.

My problem with PKR is that it was not the palace’s fault for mistreating your president, but your own.

There were so many missteps by PKR that I am personally amazed that the sultan even chose another representative from that party in the Pakatan Rakyat coalition to become menteri besar.

But the palace did not snub Wan Azizah because she is a woman, let us please put this case forward.

First and foremost, the letter asking the sultan to have a session with Wan Azizah, the president of PKR, was not written by herself. It was written by her husband, Anwar Ibrahim.

Who is he in PKR? Does he hold a single elected post?

No. He is a dictator, defined as one person with total authority within the party. Does PKR deny this?

If so, then why is he writing letters on behalf of your own party president to the monarch of the state?

And I will admit that people in PAS were definitely insane to suggest that Wan Azizah could not become MB due to her gender. This is old school thought by a party faction who may probably believe the Flintstones were a reality.

But from my perspective, it had everything to do with whether or not she was qualified to be MB.

What were her qualifications?

First, she is the newest assemblyperson in the Selangor state assembly.

Secondly, she is not even from Selangor to begin with.

Thirdly, what is her background in dealing with businesses in Selangor, which is the most industrialised state in this federation?

She never answered any of these allegations in the mud slinging road tour around Selangor that PKR conducted under the tutelage of ‘Langkah Kajang’ quagmire strategist Rafizi Ramli.

Instead, she was reported saying that she doesn’t mind “being a puppet MB”.

Women, do you seriously agree to the notion of being the voice of your husband who is the ruler of the state? If you do, I guess you would have just loved Evita Peron, didn’t you?

Some statistical points

There are more things that matter to women other than having one as Selangor MB, and I’ll highlight some points here from the 2013 Household Income Survey 2013 report by the Malaysian Department of Statistics.

There is a 4.5 percent salary and wage gender gap in Malaysia. The amount of working women in total are 3.4 million, with a median salary of RM1,500, the same as that of men.

However, drilling down according to state and median salaries, women in Selangor earn RM200 less than men.

There are more than 50,000 more women than men in the workforce who graduated with a degree, and yet their salaries are RM900 less than men.

As managers, women earn a median salary RM1,200 less than men. As professionals, they earn RM500 than men in the median.

Would you like to look at ethnicity and women? Let us do so.

A bumiputera woman gets almost RM100 less, a Chinese woman RM200 less, and an Indian woman RM400 less than that of a man from their respective ethnic groups.

There are more issues regarding women other than wanting one to be MB over and above salaries and wages. We haven’t talked about health, or childcare, or the lack of support in the legislature and enforcement agencies when it comes to enforcing to collecting child support for single divorced mothers.

And honestly, if there was a women candidate not only as MB, but also as secretaries-general, attorney-general, and even one day the inspector-general of police, I would support it. This had nothing to do with politics, so don’t fall for PKR’s sob story of making this a sexist agenda.

Because the moment you do that, you are disrespecting not just your gender, but also your intelligence.

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