KUDAT: Women will be a great decider in the coming general election, said Parti Keadilan Rakyat (Keadilan) Sabah chairman Datuk Seri Panglima Lajim Ukin.
Lajim acknowledged that women would play crucial roles in deciding which candidates would win in the coming election, and therefore which party would form the government.
“Women play very a important role, there is no question about it. It is crucial for Keadilan to reach out to them and explain issues and our solutions,” he said in his speech at the opening of the annual general meeting of Keadilan’s Kudat division here yesterday.
Lajim, who is also Sabah’s opposition leader, said, Keadilan has made it a policy to field as many as 30 per cent women out of its total candidates in the coming Federal and State elections.
In his speech, he commended a young woman lawyer from Banggi island, Raimah Majid who currently heads Kudat division, for actively providing party leadership in the Kudat parliamentary area which covers three large state constituencies — Banggi, Tanjung Kapor and Pitas.
Kota Kinabalu is the only other division out of 26 Keadilan divisions in Sabah and Labuan that is headed by a woman, in the person of Christina Liew, who is also Api-Api assemblywoman.
“Back in my own area Beaufort, there are about 28,000 voters in the area, and men only exceed women voters by about 700. That explains how crucial the votes from our women could be. They decide, and more so as they are more adept on current issues now like GST and the dizzying rise of the cost of living,” said Lajim, who is also Klias assemblyman.
At the meeting, Lajim also called on the Kudat divisional leaders to work closely not only among themselves but with the party’s various sections in order to better prepare Keadilan in Kudat for the next general election.
Also in attendance were Keadilan state vice head, Datuk James Ghani, the party’s state youth chief, Raymond Ahuar, and the party’s state protocol chief director, Dahil Masdik.