I spent about five days in UK last week. I must say I have had a fruitful trip.
Some friends asked whether I went for holiday, I hope so……But unfortunately not.
I came under women caucus of Malaysian Parliament. We spent 3 solid days in the British Parliament building to meet and listened to the sharing of MPs from different political parties. I then know that the British Parliament has a special unit to give exposure programme like this to MPs of different countries, to let them be exposed to the parliamentary democratic practices in UK.
In that 3 days, I am most impressed with the weekly Prime Minister’s Question Time, I wish this can be implemented in the Malaysian Parliament.
I am also extremely impressed with the high percentage of elected women MPs in the British Parliament.
We were informed that following the 2015 General Elections, women now make up just a third of MPs, I.e. 29.4% and 191 seats. This is the highest number of female MPs in Parliament, ever.
There were 1,033 women candidates stood across all parties at the 2015 General Election, 26% of all 3,971 candidates. This is both the highest number and percentage on record, surpassing the previous record of 21% set in 2010.
Women MPs by party:
99 Labour Party (43%);
68 Conservative Party (21%);
20 SNP (36%)
Wao….to have 1/3 female MPs in the British Parliament elected under First Past The Post system is no joke. This reflects the openness of the society on gender equality.
We were told that leaders of each political party emphasized a lot on women’s issues and fielded many women candidates during elections campaign. Women’s votes decided which candidate to win and which party came to power. ๐ฅ๐
