Some Sore Loser: Perak Exco Should Have Women

April 8, 2008

So, I was browsing through the news today and a particular piece caught my eye in Malaysiakini titled MCA: Changing fortunes of leaders. Without going into details of the entire article, a particular statement caught my eye regarding a particular character who has appeared in this blog several times:

Next, Ka Chuan announced that the cabinet would restructure or streamline policy changes on allocation of development funding to PR-controlled states through his housing and local government ministry. This was seen by some as a form of punishment, despite vague assurance that the delivery system would not burden the people.

Ka Chuan also shouted that the Perak exco line-up is incomplete without a woman representative. Yet he faces an allegation that he had over-ruled the selection of a woman candidate in Perak, denying her the chance to contest in the Malim Mawar state seat (under the Kampar parliamentary seat) in the general election.

Ong Ka Chuan Normal

That’s Ong Ka Chuan, MCA Secretary-General and Perak MCA Chief. I didn’t realize that he complained about a woman’s representative in the Perak exco, it must have been reported in the government-owned media.

So I did some googling and here is what he said back in March 30th 2008, as reported in TheStar:

SLIM RIVER: Perak’s new exco line-up is incomplete without a woman representative, Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Ong Ka Chuan said.

“The line-up is quite disappointing because there is no woman representative to look after women’s affairs,” said Ong after a function hosted to thank Tanjung Malim Barisan Nasional general election workers at Dewan Tan Sri Ghazali Jawi yesterday.

“I think they (DAP-PKR-PAS) must have overlooked that matter during their meetings,” he added.

Ong, who is also Perak MCA chief, said there were two women representatives from the DAP-PKR-PAS coalition but neither one was in the exco line-up.

“The people’s interests must not be neglected, especially the women as they constitute half of the country’s population,” he added.

You know what? I agree with the message, that perhaps the Exco should have included a woman to handle women’s affairs, especially in terms of identifying and correcting any instances of gender inequality in the state and also the Perak administration.

However, one has to wonder about the credibility of the messenger, in this case, good ‘ol Ong Ka Chuan. As Perak MCA Chief, he was responsible for drawing up the list of candidates during the last election. And out of 20+ candidates that MCA put of for contest in Perak, only 2 were women.

So I guess we can all draw our own conclusions from whether Ong Ka Chuan is actually sincere in his message, or whether it’s just another case of sour grapes.

Hint: I’d vote for the latter.

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