Women ’ s Representation at Federal Legislative and Executive Bodies : A Comparative Study of Pakistan and Malaysia

Prior research has been focused on the assessment of women representation in lower house of the parliament. This study examines an overtime growth for the descriptive representation of women in both the legislative and executive bodies of Pakistan and Malaysia. Time series plot is used to assess overtime growth of women representation since independence of the countries. The results indicate substantial increase in woman representation over the years in both the countries. However representation of women in both the legislative and executive bodies of Malaysia is better than Pakistan except lower house of the parliament, which is due to reservation of 60 seats for women in Pakistan. The results of t-test indicate that the mean difference between the two countries is significant in the upper house of the parliament but not significant only powerful in lower house of the Parliament.

Even in advance societies the representation of women has increased only marginally from 9% in 1995 to 16 percent in 2004 which is much lower than the critical mass of 30 percent envisaged at Beijing (Paxton et al., 2010;Devlin and Robert, 2008).However, recently it reached to 50 percent especially in Nordic countries, 19.9% in OSCE member countries (excluding Nordic countries) and 22.2% in American societies in 2010 (IPU, 2010).The representation of women in most of the developing countries is much below than those of advanced countries and is about 10.1% in Arabs, 13.2% in Pacific, 18.4% in Sub Saharan Africa and 18.7% in Asian countries in 2010 (IPU, 2010).
Scholars explained such variations by a variety of factors including institutional factors such as type of government, electoral process, party system, quotas (Paxton et al., 2010;Stockemer, 2008;Francechet and Piscopo, 2008) socio-economic factors like classdistinction, illiteracy, per capita income, poverty (Jabeen and Muhammad Zafar, 2009;Whistler and Mark, 2007) and cultural factors such as customs, traditions and religion (Bano, 2009).Factors responsible for women's overall under-representation is largely common across nations while the degree of under-representation varies from nation to nation (Norris, 2006).Therefore, special measures and techniques cannot bring similar outcome for all nations, rather customized strategies are mandatory to overcome the problems of women's under representation (Halder, 2004).
Although considerable work has been done on women's representation in federal legislature around the world as an individual country case study (Jabeen and Muhammad Zafar, 2009;Paxton et al., 2007;Halder, 2004;Lovenduski and Pippa, 2003) or cross countries analysis (Paxton, 1997) but less work has been done on the overtime comparative analysis of women representation in both the federal legislative and executive bodies in general (Krook, 2010;Stockemer, 2008;Whitford et al., 2007) and in the context of Malaysia and Pakistan in particular.The analysis of women representation in federal legislature is valuable but not comprehensive.For broader and overarching view of women representative comparative analyses of women representation in both the federal legislative and executive bodies are mandatory.
This study will fill this gap in the literature by analyzing comparative patterns and variations of women representation in the federal legislative and executive bodies of Pakistan and Malaysia.By analyzing the implications and the practical aspects of these measures and the problems of women at domestic and societal level this study will also suggests the proposals to make the environment conducive for implementing revolutionary steps by the government with the help of civil society and NGOs along with due cooperation of the masses.The selection of two Asian countries is based on the ground that despite many socio-economic and cultural differences the two countries are similar in terms of legacy and current state and trajectory of women's representation as both countries have a parliamentary form of government with bicameral legislature and bureaucratic structure.Furthermore, both are declared Islamic states and are capable of being the real modern Islamic countries who can exhibit the working model of peace of Islam to the whole world.

LITERATURE REVIEW
• Women in politics: reflections from Pakistan: Pakistan got independence on 14  (Wikipedia, 2010;Stone et al., 2006).Pakistan being a federal state is governed by the constitution of Pakistan 1973.The constitution allocates functions and demarcates powers between federation and federating units.The constitution empowered the federal government to legislate on matters presented in the Federal Legislative List while the residuary powers vested to the province 3 .
Pakistan has bicameral legislature comprising on National Assembly (the lower house) and the senate (the upper house) with 342 and 100 members respectively.The President is the titular head of the state while the Prime Minister is the head of the government.The population of Pakistan is 163.76 million out of which 84.98 million are male and 78.78 million are female (Pakistan Statistical Year Book, 2009).About 20% of the population lives below the international poverty line of US$ 1.25 a day (Wikipedia, 2010).Pakistan has a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic society.Pakistan is a multilingual country with more than sixty languages being spoken.English is the official language of Pakistan while Urdu is the national language.Other major languages include Punjabi, Pashto, Sandi, Balochi, Saraiki and Kashmiri.

Politics of Pakistan:
Under the provisions of the constitution of Pakistan 1973 both men and women enjoy equal rights of voting and contesting 4 .The constitution not only guarantees equal fundamental rights to every one and prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender rather bound the government to provide spaces for all marginalized groups including women in the government machinery 5 .It is also provided in the constitution that the state shall make endeavor to ensure full participation of women in all government sphere of national life (Jabeen and Muhammad Zafar, 2009;Bano, 2009) 6 .
The parliamentary system of Pakistan provide equal right of voting to every citizen of the state if he/she is over the age of 18 and a right of contesting if he/she have a graduation degree (14 years of schooling) and a 24 years of age for National Assembly and 30 years of age for senate (Wikipedia, 2010).National Assembly comprises of 342 (282 directly and 60 proportionally) elected members for the period of five years unless sooner dissolved.The senate comprises of 100 indirectly elected members (provincial assemblies) for a period of fixed six years having representation on the principle of provincial parity, however, one-half of its members retire after every three years (Yazdani, 2003) 7 .

Women and politics in Pakistan:
The political status of women in Pakistan varies considerably across regions, classes and locations due to demographic differences, socio-economic characteristics, and the impacts of religion and feudal/tribal nature of society (Jabeen and Muhammad Zafar, 2009).Predominant male society restricts women only to household activities and does not allow them to interact with the men.The political participation of women remained at low priority except in the days of independence when they were involved on equal footing (Bano, 2009;Saiyid, 2001).The role of political parties in the mobilization of women in political environment is negligible one.The political parties and masses used women for voting in elections.Their role with in the party is limited to the organization of women wing, mobilization of women in favour of party and motivating other women for agitation and rallies.Their role in decision making is not only limited rather negligible (Jabeen and Muhammad Zafar, 2009;Bano, 2009;Saiyid, 2001).
Soon after independence the newly born state granted the suffrage to women in 1947 and right of vote in 1956 (Bano, 2009).All the three constitutions (1956, 1962 and 1973) provided for the reservation of seats for women in legislature (Yazdani, 2003).The democratic regime of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (1970)(1971)(1972)(1973)(1974)(1975)(1976)(1977) opened the gate of all services to women and reserved 15% seats in National Assembly and 5% seats in Provincial Assemblies (Bano, 2009).After imposing Martial law in 1977, the then Chief Martial Law administrator General Zia-ul-Haq took many steps to empower women such as the establishment of women division, commission on women and the inclusion of chapter on women in the sixth plan (Yazdani, 2003).However, the promulgation of Hadood ordinance banned women participation as spectators in sports, imposed purda, suspended fundamental rights including the right to be free of discrimination on the basis of sex (Zaidi, 2005).
In 1988 soon after becoming the first female Prime Minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto took many steps for the wellbeing of women like the establishment of women ministry, women studies centre at five major universities, women police stations and first women bank but did not reserve women seats in national legislature (Coleman, 2004;Kamal, 2000) After becoming Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif enacted the Qisas and Diyat ordinance, which was strongly opposed by the opposite political parties, human rights activists and women organizations.He also failed to reserve seats for women in the national legislature (Zaidi, 1999).
In 1999, the then chief Martial law administrator, General Parvez Musharraf, removed the democratic government of Nawaz Nashrif and imposed Martial Law in the country.He took mega steps to improve the status of women in Pakistan.The then Parliament passed women protection bill and removed some articles of hudood ordinance, reserved 10% quota for women in Central Superior Services and across the board departments and reserved 60 seats for women in National Assembly (Cheema et al., 2005;Zaidi, 1999).The later decision 60% reservation was against the natural distribution of male and female in the country and might hamper the expected upliftment of women due to decreased competition among female due to higher percentage reservation than male and due to possible proxy inclusion of less potential candidates manipulated by male due to their decreased percentage.
Barriers to women representation: Although women representation in legislative bodies has been significantly increased over the years, however, their representation and participation in politics and decision making is still very limited (Paxton et al., 2010).There are number of political, legal (Paxton et al., 2010), socio-economic and cultural factors that restrict women form political arena (Jabeen and Muhammad Zafar, 2009;Whitford et al., 2007;Sainsbury, 2004).The political instability, corruption, insecurity, lack of political awareness, dominance of elite class, dominance of feudal lords and tribal led society are the main political factors that restrict women from politics (Jabeen and Muhammad Zafar, 2009).The quota system (Murray, 2010;Paxton et al., 2010;Bano, 2009), the deprivation of women from their right of vote, profession and freedom of expression under the umbrella of prevailing cultural and religious restrictions especially in tribal led societies are the legal flaws that refrain women to enter in political arena of a country (Jabeen and Muhammad Zafar, 2009;Cheema et al., 2005).The prevailing cultural norms, societal traditions and religious orthodoxy are the various cultural restriction imposed on women that exclude them from national politics (FBS, 2003).Illiteracy, limited access to education, poverty, economic dependency and mobility constraints are the various socio-economic factors that hinder women from the political process of a country (UNDP, 2000).
• Women in politics: reflections from Malaysia: Malaysia got independence on 13 th August, 1957 and it is a federation of thirteen states and three federal territories (Azizah, 2002).However, at the time of independence there were eleven states.(Wikipedia, 2010) 11 .Malaysia is a multicultural, multiethnic and multilingual society.The native language is Malay, which is also a national and official language of Malaysia.The other frequently spoken languages are Chinese, English and Tamils.

Politics in Malaysia:
The political system of Malaysia based on federal constitutional monarchy, where the King is the ceremonial head of the state with limited discretionary powers and acts with the advice of Prime Minister (Wikipedia, 2010;Azizah, 2002) 12 .The Prime Minister is the head of government and exercises all the powers of the federation (UNDP, 2007).The federal constitution of the state guarantee full freedom and extend equal right of voting (if he/she is over the age of 21) 13 and election for Senate (not less than 21 years of age for house of representation and Malaysian citizen, must not be a prison sentenced for a year or longer, must not have been fined MYR 2,000 or more), every member of the state irrespective of gender, race, religion and class 14 .The role of constitutions is limited as the government is based on Westminster system (Azizah, 2002).

Women and politics in Malaysia:
Since the independence of the country in 1957, women are enjoying the right of vote and holding offices (Ariffin, 1999).Half of the registered voters in the country are women and are actively participation in national politics.They are providing their full supports to their male counterparts in raising funds, running election campaigns and inspiring lady voters to come and vote during national elections (Azizah, 2002).Women always remain in front of election campaign, party procession, agitation and strikes.Despite such significant role of the women, their representation in national politics is very limited (UNDP, 2007).Generally male enjoyed more political powers than women in Malaysian society.Historically in Malaysia all the top politician, leading businessmen and religious practitioners were the male.
Barriers of women representation: Despite the government supportive policies for the advancement of women to different aspects of social life, women are under presented in many areas particularly in decision making position in governments.Such under presentation is due to many factors like political, religious and socio-cultural (UNDP, 2007).Although prevailing political culture in Malaysia is very conducive for the women to participate in political activities, however, their limited representation in decision making bodies limiting their platform to raise women issues and critical mass or collective bargaining power in key positions to effectively influence the policy-making process of the country (Ariffin, 1999).
Traditionally the religious and cultural environment of the country restricts women to domestic matters than to political matters (Azizah, 2002).Predominantly male society doesn't allow women to work outside rather retained women in the boundaries of house to work for the wellbeing of family members.Consequently, women had little opportunities to develop their skill in public domain (Ariffin, 1999).

Women representation in lower house of Pakistan and Malaysia since independence:
Figure 1 shows the overall women representation of both the countries from their date of independence.The data reveals significant difference in women's legislative representation in the lower house of the federal legislature of the two countries.Women representation increased significantly in Pakistan as compare to Malaysia.In Pakistan the women representation has reached to 22.22% in the year 2008 whereas in the same period women representation in Malaysia is 9.9.Increased women representation in Pakistan is the result of positive policy of the then government to reserve 60 seats for women in National Assembly of Pakistan 15 (Jabeen and Muhammad Zafar, 2009;Suri, 2007), whereas non-reservation of seats for women is the main cause of limited women representation in Malaysia (UNDP, 2007).
The in-depth analysis of data indicates inconsistent trends in the growth of women representation in both Women representation 11.12 24.33 2.883 7 0.024 compared to Pakistan consistent increase in women representation has been found in Malaysia except during the year 1988 (5.11%) and 1990 (5.00%) when slight decrease in women representation has been recorded.
Previous studies considered (a) the political instability and (b) expiry of the provision of women reserved quota were the main factors responsible for such inconsistent growth of women representation in Pakistan (Bano, 2009).The political instability was emerged when in 1979 the then Chief Martial Law administrator General Zia-ul-Haq imposed second Martial Law in the country and suspended the constitution and all fundamental rights.However in 1985, he decided to hold election for National Assembly, though nonparty basis and doubled women's reserved quota to (20%), which remained continued during the election of 1988 but this provision expired before the election of 1990 elections and has not been revived until 2000 (Bano, 2009).Despite steady increase in women representation from the sole representation in 1955 to 22 currently, Malaysian women's share in the lower house of the parliament has not yet surpassed the acceptable level of 30% which is perceived as critical criterion in impacting decision making process set by international agencies like Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action 1995.

Mean difference of Pakistan and Malaysia:
To measure the mean difference between the two countries in respect of women representation in the lower house of Federal legislature, t-test was performed.The result shows that the mean difference of Pakistan and Malaysian is not significant but powerful as the p-value = 0.98 (Table 1).

CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
Present study found substantial growth in women representation over the years in both the countries.The findings of the study are in consistent with the findings of Paxton et al. (2010) which found substantial increase in the growth of women representation in the lower house of the federal legislature.The growth rate of women representation in lower house of the parliament of Pakistan is much higher than Malaysia, which is due to the reservation of seats for women.The study confirms and supports the findings that quota/reservation of seats for women have greater impacts on the growth of women representation in national legislature (Paxton et al., 2010;Suri, 2007).The mean difference between countries is not statistically significant but powerful which left untouched by the previous research.
Study found considerable overtime increase of women representation in the upper house of the federal legislature of both the countries, which remained untouched in the existing literature.However Malaysia is leading in this front by having more women in the upper house as compared to its counterparts.This is due to nomination of senators by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong (king) of Malaysian, which is not practiced in Pakistan.In Malaysia each of the thirteen states indirectly elects 2 senators while the remaining has been appointed by the king (Wikipedia, 2010).This confirms the plea of previous studies that special quota or appointed/nomination of women has positive impacts on the growth rate of women representation in the national legislature (UNDP, 2007).Research at hand found higher representation of Malaysian women in the top managerial level (federal bureaucracy), especially at the post of Deputy Secretary General than Pakistani women which is due to high literacy rate and increased levels of women in the workforce (Stockemer, 2008;Matland, 1998).

Measures:
We used time series plot to show the trends in the growth of women representation overtime in federal legislature while bar chart and tables to depicts % of women representation at ministerial and bureaucratic level.Time series plot analyze change over time by focusing on intra-country change-estimating both starting positions (intercepts) and trends (slopes) for each country.As an example, consider Fig. 1, which presents women's political representation in the lower and upper house of the federal legislature of Pakistan and Malaysia since their independence 1947-2010 and 1955-2010.T-test was used to test the mean difference between Pakistani and Malaysian women representation in both legislative and executive branches of the Federal government.

Fig. 1 :
Fig. 1: Comparative woman representation in the lower house of federal legislature of Pakistan and Malaysia Comparative women representation at top level managerial positions Pakistan - (Wikipedia, 2010)namely Sabah and Sarawak joined it in 1963.Sultan heads the nine states while the other four states are governed by the governor appointed by the King, known as Yang Dipertuan Agong (YDPA)(Wikipedia, 2010).The king is elected by the Sultans amon themselves through self made Council of Rules for a period of five years 8 .The King and the Sultans rules in accordance with the advice of Prime Ministers and the Chief Minister accordingly.

Table 1 :
The application of t-test for women representation in lower house Mean difference

Table 2 :
The application of t-test for women representation in senate Mean

Mean difference of Pakistan and Malaysia:
To measure the mean difference of two countries in respect of women representation in the upper house of Federal legislature, t-test was used.The result reveals that the mean difference of Pakistan and Malaysian is significant with p =0.24 (Table2).