|
(The Star) - Wanita PKR on Friday passed a motion calling for all party assemblymen and MPs to sign a standard code of ethics that would keep them clear of scandals and abuse of power.
The wing’s chief Zuraida Kamaruddin said leaders needed to show political will and commitment to ensure that they were not dragged into scandals like that involving the two state executive councillors in Perak. She said there had been a clear attempt to discredit the Perak government with this case where several Perak executive councillors were arrested and later charged for accepting sexual favours over a proposed a RM180mil housing project in Seri Iskandar. She said there were agents of the party’s political enemies who were looking to defame the Perak government and the party needed to be careful to ensure that the innocent were not punished. “We have raised the need for the code of ethics with top party leaders and the code is currently being fine-tuned to list specific guidelines that leaders will have to follow,” she told the 583 delegates and observers at the PKR National Wanita Congress here on Friday. She also said that a special squad would be set up to steer the mechanism that will handle cases relating to the code of ethics. The congress also passed a motion Friday to empower women by calling for PKR to implement the 30% participation of women at all levels of leadership in the party especially mainstream politics. Zuraida said PKR’s constitution already states that at least 30% of the posts should be held by women but it was never implemented before this as there were not enough candidates due to the low number of Wanita members. “We have now increased our Wanita members to 60,000 of the 200,000 total party membership and we are calling for 30% of the posts to be given to women by 2010,” she said, adding that women’s participation in leadership posts had already been raised from 11% last year to 23% now. “The move to allocate 30% of the positions to women would make PKR the first political party in Malaysia to have a fully implemented rule that sets the minimum level for women’s participation in administration,” she said.
 |
And this code of ethics must have clear and implemented penalties for violations - otherwise just talk, but no action (just like the incumbents - different rules for different skins, what they say and what they do is quite different)