Political representation of women in Terengganu's partisan politics / Nurfaradila Md Noor Mahadi

The research study is on women's political representation in Terengganu partisan politics. It traces the role of women's political engagement in social and women's movements as well as in the formal political institutions. The backdrop to this study was in the field of women and politics and concerns on women's presence in partisan politics since women obtained the right to vote and stand for election. Terengganu experienced economic developments and gained solid reputation in terms of its stable politics regime and social success. Despite of these achievements, Terengganu is deficient with regard to women's political representation at the highest level of decision-making, in parliament. Moreover, the absence of documentation on this topic has rendered the scope of this study broad. In this research, it primarily draws on feminist writings to study women's political representation in Terengganu partisan politics. With regard to women's representation in partisan politics, the research looks at democratic context which resemble the Terengganu political system. From the body of literature on women's representation in politics, research draws on the concern of women's interest, movement and women's roles. The research analyses the interests of women in partisan politics, the type and existence of representation in the operations of women in partisan politics. The research also discusses the issue of women, especially the formation of feminist alliances between women's groups to form a strong lobby. The literature also emphasizes the emergence of feminism and women's political representation which makes the research interesting to study. As such, the research has the potential to contribute to the theorization in the field of 'women and polities', which is currently an emerging research area. On the issue of women in formal politics, the main concept investigated is that of representation. The research analyses the factors, challenges, strategies, forms and types which make women's political representation possible in Terengganu. Qualitative methods and semi-structured interviews were the primary research tools employed to collect data for this research. Targeted participants included women who actively participate in Terengganu partisan politics. The researcher found that, women in Terengganu partisan politics have no wide opportunity to represent themselves either in state assembly and parliament level. They also restrained in leadership and decision making in Terengganu. The study concludes that, women in Terengganu partisan politics face serious challenges in their political careers of decision making, governance and state 'building. The findings show that women have represented in partisan politics driven by few factors such as cultural, political and economic factors. The data thus shows that funding and economical supports are crucial to enable women's in partisan politics to operate autonomously and to pursue feminist agenda. Political support is therefore lacking the women's movement in partisan politics. There is a need for women to organize strategically to look beyond their capabilities in order to exert greater women's representation in the political sphere.