MCA vice-president Chew Mei Fun was picked to contest in Kajang, a seat she has a low chance of winning, because she is a woman, NGO Persatuan Kesedaran Komuniti Selangor (Empower) claims.

The women’s rights group says the candidacy of Chew ( second from left ) in the coming by-election is just one example of “barriers” to women’s political participation in Malaysia, with the “tendency of political parties to parachute women candidates into unwinnable seats”.

“Empower is disheartened that a leader of Chew Mei Fun’s capabilities was put in a position where she would most likely lose the Kajang by-election.

“In GE13, some women were moved out from constituencies where they had been serving the people and made to contest in constituencies they had never worked in, lowering their chances of being elected,” Empower said in a statement today to mark International Women’s Day, which falls tomorrow.

It said some barriers faced by women in politics received little substantive discussion, including the “disproportionate attention given to women’s looks and moral virtues”.

Others are more “well-documented”, such as the recent attacks upon Seputeh MP Teresa Kok.

“Attacks against (Seputeh MP) Kok over her Chinese New Year video invoked a form of physical violence associated with violent retaliation against women alleged to be stepping out of line, including in domestic violence.

“Empower notes that she was the only woman portrayed on a banner attacking opposition leaders in February, and the only one threatened with a slap .”

'Malaysia behind in gender parity'

Malaysia, it added, scored “abysmally” in the 2013 Global Gender Gap Report’s findings, ranking 121 out of 136 countries - among the the lower third of the countries ranked and one of the lowest-ranked in Southeast Asia.

“This means that Malaysia lags far behind many of its neighbours in terms of gender parity at the highest decision-making level, with grossly uneven ratios of women-to-men in ministerial level and parliamentary positions,” the statement says.

This, Empower added, corroborated its own research into women’s political participation in Malaysia’s electoral system - with only 10 percent of the MPs and 11 percent of state assemblypersons elected in 2013 being women.