GE15: Kedah MB denies belittling women’s capabilities as leaders

ALOR SETAR: Kedah Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor has denied that he has belittled women’s capabilities to become a leader.

He said the remark that he made recently was made based on the context of socio cultural, geopolitic, socio economic and rural area characteristics of a parliamentary constituency, where only males are suitable to become an elected representative there.

"The statement I made in that ceramah was made in the district dialect of Sik, that is the reality, I am not sexist.

"All these years, the MP of that constituency is male; we never even had a woman assemblyman," he said when approached by reporters at a Perikatan Nasional ceramah in Kodiang here on Saturday (Nov 12) night.

He admitted that nowadays, women are cleverer than men in academic fields and many university students were women compared to men.

He, however, stressed that although women are smarter, Sik still needs males as their elected representatives.

In a video that went viral on social media on Friday (Nov 11), Muhammad Sanusi was critical to Barisan and Pakatan Harapan for fielding women as their candidates in the constituency.

He defended his remark and said that was not to undermine the women in the Islamist party, but because Sik is a rural area and claimed it could affect a woman’s capabilities to become a repsentative there.

On the calls for him to apologise for the remark, Muhammad Sanusi said those who ask him to apologise must understand first what is the village dialect in that area.

He added those who ask him to apologise understand how the dialect is spoken in that area.

Sik’s parliamentary constituency will see a three-conered fight between Barisan's candidate from Umno, Maizatulakmam Othman and Pakatan's candidate Datuk Latifah Md Yatim with incumbent MP from PAS Ahmad Tarmizi Sulaiman.