Perikatan Nasional election director Azmin Ali has come to the defence of Kedah Menteri Besar Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor, who recently said that a woman is not fit to become the MP for the rural Sik constituency.
Azmin told reporters this afternoon that Sanusi (above) had explained the matter to him and the PAS leader did not mean to be condescending to women in his speech at the constituency….
“He comes from Sik, he lives in Sik, and to the people there, it (what Sanusi said) was nothing unusual to them. He did not mean to insult women,”
Sanusi was caught on video, which went viral on social media, criticising BN’s move to field Maizatul Akmam Othman in the Sik parliamentary seat.
Sanusi said that, without meaning to demean PAS Muslims, the area is vast and rural with many poor residents. He claimed it might be beyond the capabilities of women to serve there.
Do women not live in rural areas and do not their magnified problems (after all they have to do all the physical work in the house and much of the physical work on the land) make it all the more important to include woman in decision making roles?
Women may be the weaker sex, but they also have more stamina for the longer hauls. One wonders who would really be the first to run out of puff traipsing round the far flung constituencies – a tough lady or the average puffing, portly, ageing PAS cleric wading round in his flowing gowns?
After all, as everyone knows, the more familiar mode of transport for PAS’s Rolex-wearing clerics is the back of a Toyota Vellfire or Mercedes Benz.
Hopping in and out of a river boat or climbing up walkways?
It would be fun to watch the likes of Kedah’s bigoted Menteri Besar (after all his real reason for excluding women is that he fears them being treated equal) in action!