Woman PM next, Zuraida tells PKR
Outgoing PKR women's chief Zuraida Kamaruddin hopes that women can reach greater political heights in the country, including becoming menteri besar, or even the prime minister.
"Even though we want Anwar Ibrahim to be the eighth prime minister, we want either the ninth, tenth ... prime minister to be from PKR and possibly be from among the women.
"I don't think it is strange or impossible that a woman becomes this country's prime minister," Zuraida said in winding up the PKR Wanita congress in Shah Alam today.
PKR broke one glass ceiling after the May 9 general election, when its outgoing president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail became the country's first woman deputy prime minister.
Zuraida has been a key proponent of having more women in government, and in her capacity as housing and local government minister, has implemented a 30 percent women quota for local governments.
During her speech, she related how she is also pushing for more women to be on the board of the 1Malaysia People's Housing (PR1MA).
"Recently (Prime Minister) Dr Mahathir Mohamad wrote to me (about) appointing directors to PR1MA.
"I wrote back to Mahathir and said 'Tun, this doesn't fulfil the 30 percent women quota' and I asked him to reshuffle the board and make sure there are more women on it," she said.
She assured that the women she's bringing up in government are not token figures but are qualified to fill the positions.
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