PETALING JAYA: The Gender Budget Group (GBG) has urged the Election Commission (EC) to take proactive steps to increase women’s representation in politics, including introducing gender quotas, exploring electoral reforms and ensuring fairer access to campaign financing.
The coalition said Budget 2026 falls short in addressing structural barriers that limit women’s participation in both the economy and politics, despite several new allocations for leadership and entrepreneurship.
“To address this, budgets could be allocated for the Election Commission to implement measures that actively boost women political participation and representation,” it said in a statement.
GBG proposed that the EC introduce legislative gender quotas mandating a minimum percentage of women candidates across all political parties and election lists, or consider electoral system reforms such as proportional representation, which have been shown to improve women’s chances of election.
Malaysia currently ranks 151st globally for female representation in Parliament, with only 13.5% of seats held by women – a figure GBG described as “unacceptably low for a maturing democracy”.
